A Gente é Latino: the Making of New Cultural Spaces in Brazilian Diaspora Television

Abstract

This chapter examines the emergence of new cultural spaces on ethnic television channels that cater for Brazilians living abroad. These relate the Brazilian diaspora to their Spanish-speaking fellow Latin Americans, both in the region and in the United States (US) where ‘Latinos’ form the largest ethnic minority group. Ethnic channels strongly depend on language use to shape a recognisable market niche for a dispersed diaspora (Sinclair and Cunningham 2000) and, hence, Brazilian diaspora television displays an almost exclusive Portuguese monolingualism. Concomitantly, programmes catering exclusively for the diaspora audience negotiate Brazilian diaspora identity in relation to their different host cultures, most prominently that of the US where the majority of the programmes are produced. This explains their frequent juxtaposition of the ‘Anglo’ host culture and the migrants’ home culture (Bachmann 2010). Moreover, as I argue in this chapter, the programmes display new cultural spaces that relate the Brazilian diaspora to a shared Latin American identity. My analysis focuses on the role of language practices between Portuguese, Spanish and English in the shaping of these new cultural spaces and identities on Brazilian television.