Importing or Exporting Mammy? Deconstructing Racial Storytelling in Brazil

Both the United States and Latin America share similar histories of colonialism and slavery. However, Latin Americans have historically distanced themselves from these similarities. Latin Americans have claimed exceptionalism in the arena of race relations. No country has claimed this mantle more vigorously than Brazil, which has had no civil war to abolish slavery, prohibition against interracial relationships, legal segregation, or a Ku Klux Klan. A common Brazilian refrain to Americans is, “yes, there is racism in Brazil, but not like in the United States.” But on second examination, Brazil and the United States do share a racial archetype in common: Mammy, otherwise known in Brazil as Mãe Preta.This presentation examines author Monteiro Lobato (1882 – 1942), who invented the character of Tia Nastácia, Brazil’s answer to Aunt Jemima. In contrast to the United States, where Aunt Jemima has largely disappeared from food shelves, Brazil’s Tia Nastácia is an enduring character who stirred little controversy until recently. My presentation investigates the question: did Monteiro Lobato fall victim to American export power, or did he purposefully seek to import Mammy and shape her to his own needs in Brazil? As an analysis of race, class, and gender in a hemispheric context, this colloquium talk will appeal to faculty across many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including English, Latin American Studies, Critical Black Studies, Women and Gender Studies, History, and Film and Media Studies, among others.