During the Olympics, a Rio woman's refusal to help a foreigner spurs xenophobia debate
After Juliana Lima, a 23-year-old history student, had a run-in with a foreign tourist in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, she fired off a post on Facebook, just as she often does to share minutiae of her daily life. But she didn't expect tens of thousands of people to jump into the discussion, sparking a debate about xenophobia in Brazil in the midst of the Olympic Games.
Lima says a man she thinks was European came up to her while she was leaving a friend's house and asked for directions to the subway in English. She spoke in Portuguese, and refused to give directions in English. "This gringo is in Rio and I'm the one who has to speak English?" she wrote at the end of the post, written in a mixture of Portuguese and broken English.
To date, the post has received more than 8,200 comments, 21,800 shares and 73,000 reactions, with fiercely divided opinions. The controversy represents a collision between Brazil's long-standing ambivalence toward foreigners and a unique moment as the country hosts the Olympics in the midst of a historic political and economic crisis. It was also a departure from the stereotype of a welcoming, hospitable city where Christ the Redeemer has his arms open to visitors.
The post not only started a conversation about xenophobia, but also inspired the meme " Just now in Botafogo," the title of her Facebook post, as Brazilian social media s poked fun at the incident and invented other funny scenarios involving foreigners asking for directions.
As Lima tells it, she spoke in a joking manner with the man and made hand gestures so he would understand which direction to go. "He wasn't offended," Lima told Univision News.
But many Brazilians were, and accused Lima of being xenophobic. She even received insults and threats.
"There are more intelligent ways to express patriotism. Demanding that people speak our language when they come to our country isn't even patriotism, it's arrogance," one of the most-liked Facebook comments reads.
Still, Lima stood behind her reaction and what she called a sense of nationalism. "I'm in my country," she said in a phone interview. "It's common sense. Lots of people think like I do."
Indeed, Brazil is a very nationalistic country, said Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist and international relations professor at the Rio de Janeiro State University. "It's a hurt and wounded nationalism in the sense that most Brazilians think that the world doesn't respect Brazil as much as it should," he said.
While this isn't new - many of the middle class relate to this kind of anti-foreigner sentiment - Brazil's crisis makes this sense of insecurity much worse, Santoro explained.
"There's criticism from Brazilians themselves, a self-hate. And it aggravates this conflict with foreigners," he said. He also noted this kind of xenophobic sentiment was revealed the aggressive booing by Brazilian fans toward some foreign athletes in the Olympic arenas.
It's not just the foreigners in town: Brazilians also have mixed feelings about the Rio Games. "The Olympics have become an absolutely segregated party," said Lima. "The people with money have access, and the poor don't." (Lima identified herself as "from the proletariat.") A late July Ibope poll found that 60 percent of Brazilians think the Olympics will cause more detriment than benefits.
Still, Lima implied that the incident also had to do with her own language skills. "My English is terrible," she said, and itted that she'd made errors in her Facebook post.
Nevertheless, her message echoed with some on the Brazilian interwebs. "Who said we have to be eternally hospitable with foreigners, while we're deported if our visas expire? Spare me," wrote one Facebook .
"It looks like the tables have turned," another wrote.
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