{"id":36289,"date":"2014-04-17T01:32:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T01:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36289"},"modified":"2014-04-17T01:32:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T01:32:02","slug":"immigrants-stir-new-life-into-sao-paulos-gritty-old-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36289","title":{"rendered":"Immigrants Stir New Life Into S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Gritty Old Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/04\/15\/world\/americas\/immigrants-stir-new-life-into-sao-paulos-gritty-old-center.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Immigrants Stir New Life Into S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Gritty Old Center<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\" target=\"_blank\">The New York Times<\/a><br \/>\n2014-04-14<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/people\/r\/simon_romero\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Simon Romero<\/strong><\/a>, Brazil Bureau Chief<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/S%C3%A3o_Paulo\" target=\"_blank\">S\u00c3O PAULO<\/a>, Brazil \u2014 For obvious reasons, many Paulistanos still consider this megacity\u2019s decrepit old center a no-go zone.<\/p>\n<p>Carjacking and kidnapping gangs prey on motorists at stoplights. Squatters control dozens of graffiti-splattered apartment buildings. Sinewy addicts roam through the streets smoking crack cocaine in broad daylight.<\/p>\n<p>But slip into Jean Katumba\u2019s cramped Internet cafe and a different picture emerges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey call this place ugly, but I see its beauty,\u201d said Mr. Katumba, 37, who arrived from the Democratic Republic of Congo just 11 months ago.<\/p>\n<p>Trained as an engineer in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kinshasa\" target=\"_blank\">Kinshasa<\/a>, the Congolese capital, he earns a living here in Baixada do Glic\u00e9rio, a crime-ridden district, renting computers to customers speaking a variety of languages, from Haitian Creole to Colombian-accented Spanish and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lingala\" target=\"_blank\">Lingala<\/a> of his homeland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cS\u00e3o Paulo means a great thing to me: opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>An array of similar ventures started by immigrants is flourishing amid the grit of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s old center, reflecting shifts in global immigration patterns. Reinforcing S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s status as Brazil\u2019s premier global city, Asians, largely from China, Africans and Spanish-speaking Latin Americans are flowing in&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s new immigration surge stands in contrast to previous waves. After the overthrow of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pedro_II_of_Brazil\" target=\"_blank\">Emperor Dom Pedro II<\/a> in 1889, Brazil\u2019s first Constitution as a republic promoted a policy of \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=34892\" target=\"_blank\">branqueamento<\/a>,\u201d or whitening, of Brazilian society through European immigration, while prohibiting immigration from Africa and Asia, according to scholars&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/04\/15\/world\/americas\/immigrants-stir-new-life-into-sao-paulos-gritty-old-center.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Immigrants Stir New Life Into S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Gritty Old Center The New York Times 2014-04-14 Simon Romero, Brazil Bureau Chief S\u00c3O PAULO, Brazil \u2014 For obvious reasons, many Paulistanos still consider this megacity\u2019s decrepit old center a no-go zone. Carjacking and kidnapping gangs prey on motorists at stoplights. Squatters control dozens of graffiti-splattered apartment buildings. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,83,21,8],"tags":[2640,9201,11707,2327],"class_list":["post-36289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-brazil","category-latincarib","category-media-archive","tag-new-york-times","tag-sao-paulo","tag-simon-romero","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}