SAO PAULO

Sao Paulo felt like a strange combination of NYC meets South America.  It was very obvious that it is the big business and financial center of the country.  Our hotel was located just off of the big, trendy shopping district.  It was good to see this side of South America, because most of my Latin American experiences have been in poor, rural areas.

At the Japanese district in Sao Paulo - The second largest Japanese population in the world lives here!

We had several site visits for class, meeting with universities and public and private high schools.  The course is about race and higher education in Brazil.  Brazil imported over 10 times the number of African slaves that the US did, so 50% of the population is of African descent.  There is also HUGE income inequality in Brazil, and blacks are disproportionately affected.  Much of this problem relates to the structure of the education system.

Public high schools are free, but the education is of very low quality, and the schools have very limited resources.  Those families who are well-off pay huge amounts of money to send children to private high schools.  These are usually white students.  Attending a private high school and getting a good education leads these students to landing spots in *free,* highly-respected public universities.

There is much competition for admission to Brazil's state and federal universities.  Admission is based on an exam called a vestibular, created by each department within each university.  Public high school students are not well-prepared to perform on the exam, and since they come from poor families, they are unlikely to be able to afford test prep or tuition at a private university.

At the public high school we visited, only 20% of the students go on to college, whereas the private school we visited sent 98-100% of students to college.  To attack the problem, the government has toyed with affirmative action and quota policies to increase the number of public HS students or the number of black students in universities.  It's difficult to determine whether this is a problem based on race or socio-economic status. There's also much debate over the "fairness" of implementing steep quotas...Should the government stop or reduce funding a the university level to enhance public education at the high school level?

We have been studying the system, the outcomes of affirmative action and quota policies, and meeting with activist groups that help with exam prep, black representation, etc.

Outside of class visits, SP was a huge city to explore...lots of antique, craft, food, and jewelry markets, museums and parks, but my favorite part was visiting a neighborhood outside the city center.

Rubber Ducky High Heels from the Melissa Store....

Some of us ventured out to find an extended alley that was transformed into an amazing work of art.  The government was basically getting fed up with graffiti and vandalism, so they decided to pay artists to decorate (graffiti) the walls of this street.

Boca de Batman --- Graffiti

It was beautiful, the paintings were all so colorful and so different from one another. It was very off the beaten path, not mentioned in tourist books, so it was nice to see the residential side of SP.  That was more "real Brazil" to me than being in the hustle-bustle of the ritzy shopping district downtown.  The graffiti is redone every 4 months or so, so it is kind of cool to think about how unique my experience was from what anyone else has seen or will see in the future. Next up: Salvador!