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T H E GERMAN P R I V A T E SCHOOLS OF S O U T H E R N B R A Z I L : GERMAN NATIONALISM vs. B R A Z I L I A N NATIONALIZATION 1 The vanguard of black opinion among intellectuals and political activists alike, is oriented more toward the achievement of group identity and group autonomy t h a n toward the use of public schools as assimilationist agencies.2 Alexander BickeI The issues raised by this quotation prompt one to look at Brazil, a country where educational policy has aimed at the cultural integration of its racial and ethnic groups through the interlocking of school and society. This article looks specifically at three aspects of the situation from the vantage point of conflicting cultural and national loyalties : the Germans of Southern Brazil 8 as a minority group both before and after the advent of National Socialism to Brazil; the German private schools and the anomalous situation resulting from competing dual school systems in the interest of national u n i t y ; and the Brazilian government's policy of using the public schools to encourage the growth of feelings of national identity among its foreign population. American sociologists have long called attention to the fact t h a t the problems confronting the immigrant from Europe, or even the rural migrant to the city, are not fundamentally different from those of the Negro, the Jew, the Indian, or the Mexican. According to an assimilationist viewpoint, racial and cultural differences are undesirable, homogeneity is preferable to heterogeneity, and conflict is inevitable as long as unlike peoples t r y to live together. Therefore, the only solution for the problem of racial and ethnic groups lies in the mixing, blending, and combining of the diverse elements. Although both the United States' tendency toward "Americanization" and Brazil's philosophy of "Brazilianization" are reflections of such an attitude, the components that went into the making of the racial situation in both countries have been quite different. Hence, by looking specifically at the historical development of the Germans as a subgroup in the heart of Brazil and reflecting upon the manner in which their "separatism" affected the eventual building of the Brazilian nation, it is hoped that attention will be drawn to the process b y which the conflict between a minority group and a polyglot culture is resolved. Brazil, like the United States, has been the meeting place of white, red, and black peoples. However, the adjustments of these groups to one another have not been the same. For example, in the United States, a country which has an ideology of "total assimilation" and "cultural pluralism," color prejudice has, in actual fact, been very strong, discrimination and segregation have prevailed, and a system of color-caste has emerged which has made the Negro or Mexican-American all b u t an immigrant in his own country. I n Brazil, on the other hand, the assimilationist viewpoint, advocating the amalgamation of diverse ethnic units, has largely succeeded, as the blacks continue to be absorbed by the mixed-bloods, who, in turn, continue to be absorbed b y the predominantly European population. Brazil's history of race relations, however, has not always been harmonious. The racial problem, as Brazilians see it, is not so much one of "preserving racial p u r i t y "

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as t h a t of overcoming the resistance which a group occasionally offers to absorption. Prior to %Vorld War II, before the Brazilian government embarked on the nationalization of its European population, it was not unusual to find residual groups offering organized resistance to assimilation. In fact it was the presence of German, Italian, and Polish immigrants during the Vargas years (1930-1945) t h a t made Southern Brazil a region of critical international concern, a potential source of political strife endangering the stability of the nation. Of all the main immigrant currents the German one constituted the greatest danger as it consisted of a partially unassimilated nationality group. This incomplete assimilation of the Germans into the New World cultural pattern was characterized by the exclusive or partial use of the German language in everyday speech, and by a state of cultural, political, and sentimental affinity for the Vaterla~d, which not infrequently conflicted with and obstructed the growth of similar sentiments for the country of residence. German immigration contributed inestimably to the development of Southern Brazil. While statistics on foreign colonies in Brazil are difficult to evaluate, we do know t h a t the Germans eventually came to comprise the largest, oldest, and most closely knit immigrant group in all South America. Although their immigration represented less than five percent of total immigration to Brazil, they and their descendants (totalling more than a million persons as of 1942) assumed a place in national life well out of proportion to their numbers. German colonization in the State of Santa Catarina was so great t h a t it dominated all state interests and tater offered ideal conditions for the establishment of the Nazi P art y organization there. In Germany it was often said t h a t Santa Catarina constituted the cornerstone of an "Antarctic Germany." Indeed, between 1933 and 1938, Santa Catarina became a region of international concern - the German schools were looked upon as hotbeds of Nazi indoctrination and other fifth-column provocation. The German concentration was largest in the northeastern region of Santa Catarina known as the Valley of Itajai. In 1939, the people of German blood in Santa Catarina numbered about 275,000 out of a state population of one million over 100,000 of these Germans alone resided in the nuclear area of European settlement around Blumenau, the best known " G e r m a n " city of the Valley and of South America. 4 Under Brazil's system oI controlled European immigration, the Germans were not only brought in more rapidly than t h e y could be absorbed but were settled in large compact ethnic colonies in the remote and uninhabitable forest areas of the south where holdings allotted were too small. Most of the immigrants were poor; few were trained an~t experienced farmers. Their concentration into pioneer colonies only accentuated the tendency towards separate communities where contact with the native Luso population and other European nationality groups occurred at a symbiotic and secondary level. Within these colonial nuclei there was little mixture of nationalities ; mixed marriages were rare. The German pioneers, isolated from the best aspects of Brazilian civilization owing to the government's official neglect of the colonists' most modest demands, thus remained remote from Brazilian culture while at the same time clinging solidly to German tradition. The Germans came into contact with the Luso-Brazilians at best sporadically, in the larger cities and on the margins of the zone of European colonization. I t was only with the development of small industrial establishments founded by them and the eventual intermingling

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of L u s o s w i t h various s m a l l c o m m u n i t i e s of u n i f o r m e t h n i c origin, t h a t t h e i m m i g r a n t s b e g a n t o b e a s s i m i l a t e d i n t o Brazilian life a n d culture. As t h e i m m i g r a n t s c o n t i n u e d t o build t h e i r o w n l i t t l e " n a t i o n s w i t h i n a n a t i o n , " t h e y e s t a b l i s h e d r u r a l schools in o r d e r t o p r e s e r v e t h e b e s t of t h e i r racial a n d folkish c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s . T h e s e schools d e p e n d e d u p o n f u n d s f r o m v a r i o u s sources. T h e local s e t t l e r s c o n t r i b u t e d m o n t h l y t o m e e t t h e fees of t h e s c h o o l m a s t e r . F u n d s also c a m e f r o m G e r m a n y w i t h t h e s t i p u l a t i o n t h a t t h e use of t h e G e r m a n l a n g u a g e be p r o m o t e d . I n o r d e r t o a c c o m m o d a t e t h o s e few L u s o - B r a z i l i a n s living o n t h e fringe of t h e E u r o p e a n colonies, t h e Brazilian g o v e r n m e n t s u b s i d i z e d s o m e schools u n d e r t h e c o n d i t i o n t h a t P o r t u g u e s e be i n c l u d e d in t h e c u r r i c u l u m ; o t h e r s were f u n d e d s i m u l t a n e o u s l y b y b o t h g o v e r n m e n t s 5 in w h i c h case b o t h l a n g u a g e s were t a u g h t i n t e r c h a n g e a b l y . B y t h e t u r n of t h e c e n t u r y t h e s e p r i v a t e schools h a d b e c o m e so well e n t r e n c h e d in t h e s o u t h e r n s t a t e s t h a t t h e Brazilian g o v e r n m e n t , b e s e t w i t h its o w n chronic b u d g e t a r y p r o b l e m s , w a s k n o w n t o a c t u a l l y e n c o u r a g e t h e G e r m a n schools t o contin u e t h e i r activities, in t h e a b s e n c e of a real n a t i o n a l school s y s t e m . T a b l e 1 s h o w s I

TABLE

B r a z i l i a n P u b l i c Schools vs. German Private Schools i n the M u n i c i p a l i t y o / B l u m e n a u , S a n t a Catarina, z 8 5 8 - z 9 3 7 Year 1858

Municipal Brazilian Enrollp o p u l a t i o n public schools m e n t

1863 1867 1873

2.508 -

2 -

38 90 -

1874

8.000

-

-

1862

1876 1880 1883

17.000

1

German schools

-

2 2-3 3

-

2 6 15 -

84 122 -

19" -

Enrollment -

262 642

1.121 -

1900

-

-

-

I00

-

1903

-

4

-

108

3.603

108 87+

4.080 3.972

104

4.000

110 107 113 30-98

4.390 5.063 5.011 1.3004.798 3.500

1904 1906 1914

45.089 -

1915 1916 1917 1918

60.000 59.969

1920 1923 1925 1928 1930 1937

63.000 77.000 98.663 -

4 4**

157 -

-

-

8

320 372 520 749

8-10 10 20 50 . -

68 55 -

2.347 .

. 3.051 -

40-50 . 109 132 134 174

5.745 4.013 -

Source : M y c o m p i l a t i o n f r o m diverse reference sources. The figures are o n l y r o u g h estimates, showing general trends.

+

Plus t h r e e I t a l i a n Schools. Two in B l u m e n a u , t w o in Gaspar. T h e r e were 112 p r i v a t e schools a l t o g e t h e r : 4 P o r t u g u e s e ; 5 P o r t u g u e s e a n d G e r m a n ; 4 P o r t u g u e s e a n d Polish; 1 P o r t u g u e s e , I t a l i a n a n d G e r m a n ; 17 P o r t u g u e s e a n d I t a l i a n ; a n d 81 G e r m a n .

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the disparity between private and public school education in Blumenau from 1858 to 1937. These figures, although incomplete, do allow us to draw the following conclusions: (1) t h a t the German private schools in this heavily concentrated area of German colonization greatly outdistanced the national schools up until World War I when the Brazilian government began to show signs of coping with the situation by opening up public schools to replace those which had been closed by law; and (2) t h a t even after the war when the German schools were permitted to reopen, their school enrollment almost doubled without any proportionate increase in public school enrollment; the German schools continued to maintain their lead in numbers by a 2 to 1 ratio up until 1937 when the foreign-language schools were either closed or nationalized. Although the Germans considered themselves and their schools as superior to their hosts in Kultur, relations between the Germans and the Brazilians were cordial as long as German nationalism did not become aggressive. However, it soon became apparent t h a t ethnic colonization had only favored the further development of foreign nationalism within the country's national borders. With Brazil's declaration of war against Germany in 1917, the non-assimilation of the Germans into Brazilian life began to constitute a grave problem. As a consequence of the war, all the German schools were temporarily closed and the Brazilian government, faced for the first time with the inevitable task of trying to amalgamate its foreign "islands of culture," began to make modest attempts to establish some sort of a public school system in the German regions (see Table 1). In the aftermath of World W a r I, the events which were unfolding in the Old W o r l d , especially the successes of European totalitarianism, tended to re-fuel the resurgence of German nationalism in Brazil. The postwar years also stirred up political and social strife to dimensions never known before in Brazilian history, as various processes of radicalization and reaction gnawed away at the country's political structure. I t was such an atmosphere which nurtured the main tenets of Nazism and other fifth-column movements when Getfilio Vargas came to power with the Revolution of 1930. After the rise of Hitler in 1933, the Nazis in Brazil lost no time in taking over the direction of close to 2,500 German schools. Since the German immigrants were still connected with every branch of German economic, cultural and political life, it is no wonder t h a t the schools became one of the most important media through which the Nazi P a r t y Organization was able to indoctrinate the local German-speaking population in the National Socialist Weltanschauung. The German schools were immediately organized into city- and state-wide School Leagues under the National Socialist Teachers' Organization, itself closely tied to the Foreign Organization of the N S D A P in Nazi Germany. From 1933 on, only those teachers trained in Nazi ideology and approved by the N S D A P were allowed to teach in the schools. Teaching materials imported for use in the schools also reflected the changed outlook of the " n e w " Germany by introducing the teaching t h a t the Third Reich had a mission "to Germanize the world by supplanting loyalty for Brazilwith l o y al t y t o Nazi Germany." It was not until the late 1930's, however, when the inroads of totalitarian infiltration from abroad began to seriously endanger the "defense of the state" t h a t the Brazilian government suddenly became aware of the danger which their indifference had helped to create over the decades. With the establishment of the "New State" (Estado Ndvo) in 1937, President Vargas was able to use his new far-reaching powers by embarking on the economic and cultural nationalization of its foreign stock.

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Vargas' form of cultural nationalization was probably the most militant measure undertaken by any South American country to solve its minority problem. The regulations were intended to deal a blow to the maintenance of a homogeneous culture among foreign settlers in the midst of Brazil and to dissolve their ethnic identity on the well-substantiated assumption that, with the disappearance of t h e foreign language, social and cultural absorption would only be a m a t t e r of time. Thus, the German private school, which had been used by the colonists for over a century as a device for maintaining their foreign ties and loyalties, became one of t h e main targets for nationalization. The aims of the Vargas educational program were summed up ill 1940 by Minister of War, General Eurico Durra. He said: " T h e principal objective of education is to create a national consciousness." The schools therefore had the duty to encourage "a mentality capable of disposing public opinion favorably toward nationalism." Although Vargas' instrument for carrying patriotic indoctrination into the education process was created through a series of "emotional" decrees aimed at combatting foreign political influences ill all the foreign schools, the measures adopted were aimed primarily at the private schools of the fascist " H o l y Alliance." Thus, the question of teaching courses in foreign languages and of permitting foreign governments to subsidize private schools became closely linked to the question of Nazi and Fascist propaganda. Of the three Axis communities, the nationalization of the German schools caused the strongest animosities on the part of the settlers. Within a few months, they saw the work of some 115 years paralyzed while the life and death of their culture was being decided under Vargas' denationalization drive. When the Brazilianization of the German schools began to meet with open resistance in the solid German districts, the government took steps to force all German organizations to accept Brazilian direction. W h a t this move virtually m ean t was the deliberate attempt to obliterate use of the German language. As a result, the Germans in ruin responded by setting up underground clandestine schools. The government, realizing that harsh persecution would only drive the illegal school,s further underground, rejected punitive action for a policy of bringing about a closer relationship between the schools and family, government, and world conditions. They set out to modify and centralize the Brazilian educational system by developil~.g the greatest number of free public schools in the foreign language zones. Close to 900 public schools were opened in the early 1940s, to replace some 800 private schools, with the aim of teaching Portuguese and the history of Brazil to children of foreign extraction. The first results of this form of "social competition" were impressive. Whenever a clandestine school was discovered and all order written to close it, that same order also directed the construction of a public school to take its place at or near the same site as possible. Finally, with the establishment of the National Fund for Elementary Education in 1942 and the passage of the Primary Education Organic Law of 1945, tile construction and operation of Brazilian state schools was pushed forward as rapidly as possible. Although the fundamental social causes of clandestine instruction had not been permanently removed as the Vargas years came to a close in late 1945, Brazil's attempt to instill a desperately needed minimum of national education for its colonial regions had largely succeeded under trying circumstances. The year 1945 marked a turning point for Brazil and the educational efforts of Vargas on behalf of nationalization. Vargas was eased out of office, World War II ended, and although the old problem of nationalization of foreign groups still

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existed, it was considerably lessened in degree by the psychological defeat of the Axis powers. For the most part, Brazil's policy for "hemispheric defense" had left the German population in the south subdued and sullen. Nationalization as a bona fide educational venture had been relatively successful. The legislation of 1937 and after had Brazilianized everything. The German schools remained closed by law, never again to reappear. By 1950 most of these schools had been successfully converted into Portuguese language institutions bearing LusoBrazilian names. Said the Jornal de Joinville (Santa Catarina) of November 25, 1955: Thanks Brazilian people of five most

to nationalization, times have changed. Already the young Germanspeaks no more, or little, the language of his forebears. Today, the Blumenau speak Portuguese correctly, and Blumenau is one of the progressive cities in all Brazil.

In retrospect, it appears t h a t nationalization was bound in occur to a country where foreign ideologies were in conflict with the "national spirit." The government had realized t h a t the best place to break the malignant cycle of isolation and aggressive regionalism was ill the public schools and t h a t the fundamentals of a nation's ethics and ideology were best taught in the national language. However, the "nationalization of education" was only one of m a n y steps taken to effect a more rapid assimilation. One cannot overlook the miracle of Brazil's industrialization between 1930 and 1945 and its contribution toward the realization of national identity. The bulk of evidence indicates t h a t there was a direct connection between attitudes and place of residence, the rural Germans remaining German longer than those living in the towns. As Brazil began to transform herself into a modern nation, the German regions became unimportant, bypassed rural communities without political or economic importance as the immigrants became more attracted to developing urban centers. Urban life in general, with its mixture of nationality groups and adaptation to Luso ways, often made it just t h a t much easier for the public schools to inculcate national goals. With the eventual establishment of "mixed colonies" in the south, the Germans more and more began to develop a kind of New World culture, composed of many elements transferred from Europe and complemented by certain traits and trait-complexes borrowed from Brazilians. By the same token the phenomenon of post-war assimilation was also connected with social mobility and the emergence of sharply differentiated social classes. As the immigrants became integrated into different ecological and social systems, it was inevitable t h a t they should find it more difficult to preserve Old World traits. W i t h the advent of the wireless, television, better highways, and the airplane, the Germans were brought closer together with the native population. Since economic interests required more personal contacts among individuals of different national origins, Portuguese became the language in which business was conducted. Finally, Brazil's international position is now different from what it was before the war, and this growth in national status coincided with the political decline or defeat of almost all the native countries from which the immigrants came. Today, German children refer to themselves as Brazilians, not German-Brazilians. Thanks to the enforced use of Portuguese in all the schools, young people are now taught in a language t h a t is the lingua franca of Brazil. Although many Germans are bilingual, the German tongue has come to symbolize for many their undervalued or even despised rural culture as a minority group, the trend being t o d ay t h a t Portuguese is considered urban and therefore "superior." Even the practice of keeping the German tongue alive in the home has m e t with little success as the federalism of

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many Germans loses ground with each generation. "While there are still many isolated rural communities today all over the south whose integration into national life is far from complete, their members are finding it more difficult to preserve Old World traits as more interactions among individuals of different origins permeate the realm of primary relations. Although it is difficult for a people to change national characteristics because of weight of tradition, custom, family, literature, folklore, schools, and other factors, it is equally difficult to retain characteristics unadulterated when environmental and social conditions are changed radically. However much they might have wished to remain Germans, however much encouragement they might have received from the homeland, the new country to which they went tended to negate the desired result. This factor alone raised great obstacles in Hitler's establishment of an "Antarctic Germany" in Southern Brazil. RICHARD O. DALBEY, Indiana University

NOTES 1 This paper is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, The German Private Schools o/ Southern Brazil During the Vargas Years, ~93o-~945: German Nationalism v. Brazilian Nationalization, School Education, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1970, pp. 291. Time, 95, ~ o . I0, March 9, 1970, p. 14. Southern Brazil comprises the three southern states which received the brunt of German immigration: Paran~, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. 4 A good example which illustrates the biological vitality of the German colonists in Santa Catafina m a y be referred to here: the 17 original colonists who arrived in Blumenau in 1850 were increased by more than 6,000 before 1870 - in 1882, the German speaking population in the Blumeau region made up 71 percent of the total, the Italians I 8 percent, and the Portuguese only about I 0 percent. 8 Robert GERNHARD, Dona Francisa, Hansa und Blumenau: Drei deutsche Mustersiedlungen im siidbrasilianischen Staate Santa Catarina, p. 302.