Brazil was the 73rd country I’ve visited. I was coming directly from Lima, Peru, which has a higher population than Rio. But, somehow I felt like I had been dropped from a quiet Kansas backroad, to New York City at rush hour: full of noise and motion, and what felt like a thousand distant relatives speaking a language I couldn’t understand.
Crime & Why I Avoided Rio for So Long
I usually travel solo. Brazil has lingered on my wishlist because of all the cautionary tales.
“It’s not safe.” “Don’t go alone.” “You’ll get robbed.”
I understand why people say that. Rio is a city of 6+ million people, with stark inequality and nearly 1/4 of its residents living in favelas shaped by decades of economic stratification.
Thankfully, the fear rhetoric was louder than the reality I experienced. I met plenty of solo women navigating the city confidently. I made friends easily.
While I was in Rio, the deadliest police operation in the city’s history, unfolded in one of the favelas. Many called it a massacre. By the end of it, 110+ people were dead.
It was horrific.
I spent days asking locals how they felt about it; whether they felt safe, how they understood the relationship between the police and the favelas, what it meant to live in a city where these operations are both condemned and normalized. Some people defended the crackdowns. Others spoke about systemic racism, and the disproportionate violence faced by favela residents — many of whom are Black and poor.
To me, the conversations were deeply sad.
Even with all that, the crime wasn’t what shook me about Rio.
The Shock I Wasn’t Prepared For
There are a lot of Black Americans going to Brazil right now – and for years – talking about how it feels like home. How free they feel there.
Brazil has the largest population of people of African descent outside the African continent. Black and mixed-race people now represent 55.5% of the 203 million Brazilians living in the country.
Over half the country identifies as Black or mixed (preto or pardo). But, still at first, I felt…lonely? Definitely disoriented and strangely untethered.
And I had never heard anyone say that part before.
I Was the Mode
In Rio, I looked around and thought: Oh my God. You look like my cousin. You look like my aunt. You look like me.
Light brown skin. Deep brown skin. Loose curls. Tight curls. The exact range of faces I grew up around.
I’m a Black American. I have mixed heritage, like most of us do. My skin is light brown — ambiguous enough to be mistaken for something else in many places. and Even in parts of Africa, I’m finding most people view me as White. They very rarely perceive me as having African heritage, or akin to them, or North African.
But in Rio? Curly hair was the mode.
My skin tone was the average.
My face fits right in (but so does everyone – because Brazil truly has every type of face)
For the first time in my life. I was the mean. The median. The mode. I felt visually… statistically average.
I’ve been to Morocco. Egypt. Puerto Rico. Costa Rica. Places where people share my coloring. But, this was different.
This wasn’t resemblance. This was like…recognition.
And that was really freaking weird.
The Atlantic Slave Trade — In Real Time
Brazil and the USA are cousins in history whether we acknowledge it or not, Portuguese colony compared to a British colony.
Between the 1500s and 1800s, an estimated 12.5 million Africans were forcibly taken across the Atlantic.
Of those:
- About 400,000 were brought to what became the United States.
- Roughly 4 – 5 million were taken to Brazil.
Brazil received more enslaved Africans than any other country in the world — about 40% of the entire transatlantic slave trade.
Rio was once the largest slave port in the Americas. The Valongo Wharf — now a UNESCO World Heritage Site — was the primary entry point for enslaved Africans in the 19th century.
You see West Africa in faces and gait.
You see Yoruba cosmology preserved in Candomblé rituals.
You see the Middle Passage in curls and cadence.
It’s super visible. and for me, visceral.
I found myself looking at strangers and thinking: you are not metaphorically my cousin. You are probabilistically my cousin.
I had recently read the book Homegoing, so this was top of mind.
Feeling Foreign in a Familiar Face
But they did not look at me the way I was looking at them. They heard a foreigner.
I had been studying Portuguese for weeks. I could order food. Ask for directions. Hold basic conversations. I was trying. But there were moments where people were really rude to me, rolling their eyes at me, yelling because I couldn’t understand them or when I asked them to speak slower.
I didn’t expect to feel xenophobia in a place where I visually blended in.
Once, while getting my nails done, I had what I can only describe as a Pretty Woman moment. The women was repeating everything I told her about myself to her coworkers – where I’m from, how long I’ve been studying Portuguese and laughing at me? Right in front of me. I didn’t understand what was funny but I certainly heard her repeat everything I just told her – and I heard everyone laughing.
So I said, “Eu posso te entender.”
I can understand you.
She just said, “Eu sei.” I know. Then told her coworkers to talk faster so I couldn’t understand.
I really wanted to cuss everybody out but didn’t know how, and didn’t know exactly what they were laughing about.
The disconnect in language, actually hurt my feelings more than I expected. and obviously, that interaction pissed me off.
Eventually, my Portuguese improved. And as it did, interactions shifted. People were warmer. Playful. Curious.
Brazil Is Not a Fantasy
There’s a narrative online that Brazil is some kind of racial utopia for Black Americans because we can be apart of the majority. It’s not.
Brazil abolished slavery in 1888 — the last country in the Western Hemisphere to do so. The legacy of slavery and colonialism remains visible in its economic disparities, policing, and social hierarchies – just as much, if not more starkly than in the United States.
It is joy and violence. Beauty and inequality. Cultural preservation alongside systemic neglect.
If you want a glimpse into that tension, watch The Secret Agent — it captures a sliver of the country’s atmosphere and moral ambiguity in a way that feels uncomfortably honest. I really enjoyed the film.
Would I Go Back?
In fact, I want to live in Brazil — and I likely will.
Six weeks of studying gave me enough Portuguese to hold a conversation at the level of a 9 year old child. I’m confident with time, I’ll be ready to fully integrate. After Rio De Janeiro, I visited Florianopolis and São Paulo. I really loved all 3 places, and can’t wait to visit Salvador, Brasilia, Minas Gerais, Recife, and the whole country!
Rio is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been; mountains rising from the sea, humming with music.
But more than that, Rio asked me what belonging actually means.
It forced me to confront the difference between looking like you belong and being able to participate fully. It made history feel immediate rather than academic.