http://www.telesurtv.net/english/ne...ags-Some-in-Brazil-Wave-It-20150624-0035.html
Once a year, a community of descendants of U.S. Confederates, who fled during the U.S. Civil War, celebrates their roots in a town in Brazil by using Confederate flags and symbols. The community has almost 10,000 and many of them join the celebration, which takes place in the rural Brazilian town of Santa Barbara D'Oeste. "They all take part in stereotypically southern things like square dances, eating fried chicken and biscuits, and listening to George Strait," Asher Levine, a Sao Paulo-based correspondent for Reuters, said in an interview with Public Radio International on June 22. "And a lot of Confederate flags everywhere, all over the place." But those local Brazilians, whose roots to the confederates go six or seven generations back, do not wave the Confederate flag as a political statement but rather as an ethnic one. Levine says that they saw themselves as “ethnically American to some degree”.
“At an Italian festival, you would see people waving an Italian flag. Or on Saint Patrick's Day you see people waving the Irish flag. They see it that way. They don't have any political affiliation to it whatsoever," Levine added. Arguing for a racial sentiment would not make sense as many of those Brazilians have intermixed with local Brazilians and their skin color varies significantly. "A lot of people who are descendants of these confederates have African blood as well, so you'll see at the party people with dark skin waving the Confederate flag," Levine asserted. But the flag and the symbols of the Confederate continue to be used politically by neo-Nazi groups outside of the U.S. who identify with what the Confederate once stood for.
Once a year, a community of descendants of U.S. Confederates, who fled during the U.S. Civil War, celebrates their roots in a town in Brazil by using Confederate flags and symbols. The community has almost 10,000 and many of them join the celebration, which takes place in the rural Brazilian town of Santa Barbara D'Oeste. "They all take part in stereotypically southern things like square dances, eating fried chicken and biscuits, and listening to George Strait," Asher Levine, a Sao Paulo-based correspondent for Reuters, said in an interview with Public Radio International on June 22. "And a lot of Confederate flags everywhere, all over the place." But those local Brazilians, whose roots to the confederates go six or seven generations back, do not wave the Confederate flag as a political statement but rather as an ethnic one. Levine says that they saw themselves as “ethnically American to some degree”.
“At an Italian festival, you would see people waving an Italian flag. Or on Saint Patrick's Day you see people waving the Irish flag. They see it that way. They don't have any political affiliation to it whatsoever," Levine added. Arguing for a racial sentiment would not make sense as many of those Brazilians have intermixed with local Brazilians and their skin color varies significantly. "A lot of people who are descendants of these confederates have African blood as well, so you'll see at the party people with dark skin waving the Confederate flag," Levine asserted. But the flag and the symbols of the Confederate continue to be used politically by neo-Nazi groups outside of the U.S. who identify with what the Confederate once stood for.
