Harvey L. Johnson

The Brazilian Mirror: Some Brazilian Writings in English Translation

All Americans know that much of our coffee comes from Brazil. Most have heard of marvelous Rio de Janeiro, one of the beauty k queens of the earth—a city compressed between ocean and granite hills with dazzling white beaches, mosaic sidewalks, scores of night clubs, merry-making sambas, and a lavish Carnival. Quite a number have read of its awesome new capital Brasilia, a fabulous creation of glass and concrete built in the middle of nowhere. Some are aware that it is a vast country, our largest and most powerful Latin American neighbor, with huge natural resources and a mushrooming growth in population: its high-grade iron ore reserves are among the richest in the world; its population is estimated to be 80,000,000, the major portion distributed along the Atlantic seaboard. Brazil, the fourth largest country in the world, occupies approximately one-half of South America, with a surface of 3,287,195 square miles, much of it unexplored, and has borders with all the countries of that continent excepting Ecuador and Chile.

Some Aspects of Spanish American Culture

Latin Americans are radically individualistic and sometimes it seems to a foreign observer that there are almost as many differing opinions as there are people. An admittedly extreme case will serve to confirm the aforesaid comment. In 1946 one of the warring factions of the Liberal Party of Colombia received, in response to its circular setting forth the rules for the campaign, the following telegram: Liberal Directorate, Bogota. Have received circular. Respectfully advise am only liberal in this town. And I am divided. Regards. Pedro Pirateque With individualism so rampant, it becomes immediately obvious that in a field as broad as the culture of twenty Latin-American republics, generalizations are difficult to make and some evaluations are only relevant when applied to specific areas or regions.