I was born and raised in Brazil. I am most proud and happy about growing up there. When I moved to the United States to complete my higher education, people would get most excited to hear where I was from, the stories I had to tell. I light up when speaking about my family and friends, and the city lifestyle I’m used to in Sao Paulo. Some people got confused on that part.
“So, you don’t live near the Amazon forest?”
“Do you guys really have shopping malls and skyscrapers?”
The problem with those statements I have personally heard, and many others that international students hear all the time, is that it doesn’t take into consideration all the ways cultures and countries evolve over time. In a very romantic vision, people expect cultures not to develop as the world itself grows around them. They want these cultures to stay stagnated and live their traditional lifestyle while seeing others thrive and live better with technology.
Amazon Indigenous people, for example, use electric stoves and wear H&M clothes today and they are taught English alongside their native tongue and Portuguese. Some say that this literally kills the culture and its “authenticity” since they don’t walk around naked or cook in campfire-like pans. The sad reality is that those people get upset for not being able to see the “real” native Amazonian culture.
According to Dr. Stephen Pax Leonard, language is the ultimate core of culture, the “collection of statements about the world delivered in a multitude of voices set to a background of music” and to lose a language for “monoculture of populism and consumerism” is to lose cultural diversity as well.
That assumption that cultures and languages around the world are just as they were decades ago is not a rare occurrence.
Children movies produced by Walt Disney still illustrate different cultures as stereotyped as possible. The new movie Moana, for example, has received a lot of criticism because they misrepresented the demigod Maui, who is portrayed as enormous and a buffoon in the film. Through this inaccuracy with the cherished, real culture of Polynesia, Disney produces one viewpoint of people in South Pacific and their traditions that differ greatly from the reality of their stories, which portray the demigod as a hero and a trickster.
That passes along the message to the hundreds of thousands of children watching this movie that the Southern Pacific culture is outer worldly and strange, when in reality, they live today with similar technologies and information access that we have too.
What Disney movie producers (and most people) don’t take into consideration is the fact that cultures are not halted. They evolve as the world around them do. Specially with the phenomenon of globalization, when everything is fast-paced and information is so accessible that cultures assimilate one another and adapt faster than they would have years ago.
Some historians, researchers and mostly tourists get upset by the changes that information sharing can bring to a culture different from their own.
Well, that assumption of globalization as a cultural diversity eraser is not as realistic as people think.
It may seem that way because the world is evolving more quickly and we can’t keep up with the changes, but expecting and portraying cultures not accurately can lead to a series of social and civil assumptions that our modern and informed world don’t accept anymore.
What people think is killing a culture and making it less “authentic” is actually improving the way of life of the Amazon tribes. Because they speak Portuguese and English, they can better communicate with the government and even pass laws to protect their lands. Stoves and clothes make it easier to stop the spread of diseases and life expectancy is greater with industrialized medication and accessible health information.
By expecting the Amazon Indians, and any other culture, to live a life based on ancient tradition, most people keep ‘Disney-ing’ such cultures and not seeing them as their full potential allows. Cultures evolve and make do with the circumstances given to them.
We must not hold on to old impressions and stories we hear about different cultures when we see their reality. It’s okay to make assumptions and have expectations of a different life style than yours, it is natural and healthy to make them. I had a culture shock when I studied abroad in London. But just because it wasn’t the way I imagined, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong or inappropriate.
When we learn the reality of those cultures, we shouldn’t try and blame them (or globalization) for not being just as we expected them in our romanticized cultural expectation. All cultures evolve eventually, and they shouldn’t be criticized for doing so.
Yes, we do have skyscrapers in Brazil.
