Contested Belongings Microform Crowding The Portuguese Speaking Diaspora In Canada

I locate various Portuguese-speaking communities in Canada within Avtar Brah's notion of 'diaspora' and its attention to power, "difference," transnationality, and history. In particular, I center colonization as creating dominant narratives of what is "Canadian" and who can claim "Portugueseness" that diversify experiences of ethnicity and race within the Portuguese-speaking diaspora along discourses of racialization and white privilege. I also view how class, sexuality, gender, and region significantly inflect these experiences. I conduct 8 interviews with immigrant and second-generation youth from the diaspora in Toronto and explore how these dominant discourses of belonging influence their racial, ethnic, and national affiliations. I also examine how Canadian mainstream media diversely position three 'success' stories from the diaspora, the Afro-Brazilian martial art Capoeira, Nelly Furtado, and Shawn Desman, within national self-representations. I focus on dominant discourses of belonging because they inform who and who does not receive community and State resources.