Belonging-as-Being

Chapter 4, “Belonging-as-Being: Brasilândia as ‘Little Africa,’” details the ethnoracialization of Brasilândia as a “Little Africa” in the 1960s and 1970s. The chapter focuses on three processes that contributed to this ethnoracialization: a shift in dominant approaches to official urban planning in metropolitan São Paulo; the founding of a championship samba school in Brasilândia named Rosas de Ouro; and the application of a racist nickname to the region through a widely popular reality radio program. While introducing continued, novel, and significant instances of anti-Black violence, this chapter also highlights how and why Brasilândia became a privileged site for survival and belonging among African descendants in these years.