Navigating the upcoming Brazilian elections as a Brazilian expat
A brief reflection on what it means to be an immigrant during electoral periods while being eligible yet ineligible to vote
I’ve never felt so disconnected from my country and its politics.
Brazilian presidential elections are in less than two weeks. This would be the first election where I’m legally required to exercise my voting rights. But because I live abroad and was unable to transfer my electoral identification document within the designated timeline, I cannot cast my ballot for President, Vice-President, and National Congress.
Not that I really had a candidate I faithfully believe in to vote for, anyway. Trying to find a credible politician to vote for in Brazil right now is like trying to find good news within the current news cycle — you may think you found it, but eventually, you will find yourself disappointed and your trust in them betrayed. If I had to vote this election, I genuinely couldn’t confidently state that I wholeheartedly support a specific Presidential candidate.
Brazil’s current political context is too complex and too nuanced to explain here. If you’re interested in knowing some backstory, late-night show host John Oliver did a fantastic job in summarizing it through ironic commentary in this video. You can message me to ask me about my thoughts, but I already warn you that you’ll receive a crash-course, mini-podcast lecture from me.
I just finished doing one of my course readings before the lecture session this morning. In it, Jackson (2016) explains the origins and the innate intersectionality of the Black Livers Matter movement in the United States. Not only did this movement find great space and significance to begin its own version in Brazil, but the authors explain how, for the founders, “the personal and political are truly intertwined, and the political is unquestionably intersectional.” (p. 376).
While I don’t want to take this quote out of its article’s context, I think it applies to what I feel right now as a Brazilian expat. I still care for my country; in fact, I care for my country since leaving it. But as an immigrant, you constantly find yourself in two places at once.
The population is so deeply polarized according to which political candidate you sympathize with. People joke about how their vote is secret while jokingly promoting their candidate’s electoral number so people know their political affiliations. And when the time comes to push those digits, cast your electronic ballot, and the next President is announced, I am convinced the country will become even more divided than it already is.
I struggle to find people with whom to have a heartfelt, unpolarized conversation about our country’s politics. But most notably, I struggle to find the time and emotional energy to connect to the upcoming electoral reality back home, especially right now. I had jokingly warned my friends in Toronto that I would just lowkey feel miserable and helpless during the months of September and October because of the elections back home.
But I was wrong. And as much as it pains me to write this, I genuinely feel nothing. I still care, but emotionally, I’m just not as invested as I thought I would.
Maybe it’s a sign of political maturity, my scheduling priorities, or adulting overall. Maybe it’s a bit of everything. But I didn’t expect to feel so emotionally uninvested and so preoccupied with other tasks to really follow what is going on.
I write this to say that if you’re also navigating other current events from your home country as an immigrant and don’t know how to process or feel them — your feelings, whatever they may be, are valid.
It’s okay if you don’t really have the energy to process current events just yet. Not knowing how to navigate a specific current event or how to represent your country while experiencing it doesn’t make you less of a citizen.
That’s the beauty of being an immigrant — it’s your story, and you’re in control of how to share it. Remember that you’re the only one with the authority to define your own cultural identity.
References
Jackson, S. J. (2016). (Re)Imagining intersectional democracy from Black feminism to hashtag activism. Women’s Studies in Communication 39(4), 375–379.
