Talk:Spanish Brazilians/Archive 2

Population
What does "actual "Spanish Brazilian" population unkown but much smaller" mean, in the lead?

If the point is that the "true" Spanish Brazilians are those of very recent Spanish ancestry, then that should be stated; like this, for example: "First and second generation population is unknown". Cheers. SamEV (talk) 22:04, 30 May 2010 (UTC); 22:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think things are clear cut as that. It is possible to a person to be the child of Spanish immigrants, and don't care at all about such ancestry, considering him or herself to be Brazilian, period. It is also possible, although arguably less common, that a person who is a fourth or fifth generation descendant keeps strong ties to a Spanish or "Spanish-Brazilian" identity, participating in Spanish-Brazilian societies, etc. I think the lead description explains this well; anyway I have changed the infobox to match such description. Ninguém (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Why must a Spanish Brazilian be someone who is "aware of such ancestry and remains connected, in some degree, to Spanish culture"? You'd be better off just relying on ancestry. It works well at Wikipedia for the myriad similar articles. SamEV (talk) 18:19, 6 June 2010 (UTC)


 * So if you have one spanish immigrant great-grandparent,  and the other seven great-grandparents you have are not immigrants and not spanish,   does that make you a Spanish-Brazilian ?  What if one of your other great-grandparents was from Poland ?  Does that make you a Polish-Brazilian also ?   In which case,  the total number of hyphenated-Brazilians  would exceed the actual number of Brazilians.Eregli bob (talk) 23:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, it makes the myriad of similar articles an awful mess. What would be a "Spanish Brazilian"? Someone with Spanish parents? Someone with one Spanish parent? With one grandparent? With one grand-grand-grandparent? Gee, this article until recently told us that all gaúchos are "Spanish Brazilian" - because a paper says that 'maybe' they have more Spanish ancestors - in the 18th century! - than Portuguese ones. These articles pass the idea that there are cohesive groups of "Italian Brazilians", "Spanish Brazilians", whatever-Brazilians, which is completely false. According to these stupidities, I myself am not only "Italian Brazilian", but also "Portuguese Brazilian", as such belonging to at least two different "ethnic groups", and perhaps even being "mixed race" (for instance, Giselle Buendchen used to be listed as a 'mixed race Brazilian' because she has German and Portuguese ancestors). Needless to say, this has absolutely no relation to reality. Ninguém (talk) 19:18, 6 June 2010 (UTC)


 * You fundamentally misunderstand this article, and maybe the whole class thereof, Ninguém. Some of these groups are based merely on ancestry and are not "ethnic groups" (don't be fooled by the "Infobox ethnic group" template; that's just the name Wikipedia gives this broad category of articles). These articles merely tell interested readers about the people in a certain country who claim or are ascribed a particular ancestry, whether fully or partially.
 * As for belonging to more than one ancestry group, ancestry is not an "either/or" proposition. It is self-evident that one is of as many ancestries as the ancestries one has.
 * "What would be a "Spanish Brazilian"? Someone with Spanish parents? Someone with one Spanish parent? With one grandparent? With one grand-grand-grandparent?"
 * It's all of the above, as far as I know. If millions of Brazilians do have more distant Spanish ancestry, but they don't [know it, or] claim it, and no [one] else attributes it to them, then so be it, Ninguém. We deal with the info we have. SamEV (talk) 05:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC); 22:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think I misunderstand this article. At least in Brazil, there are no "groups" based on ancestry. "Groups" isn't a neutral word; it implies an active perception of belonging, that does not exist in Brazilian society. And I do not attribute such naïve neutrality to Wikipedia infoboxes; they are very intentional, and they do state a vision of things. "Ethnic group" isn't "just a name" that Wikipedia gives to a broad category of articles. Unless Wikipedia uses a totally biased definition of "ethnic group", different from those used elsewhere.


 * And since ancestral categories (not "groups") are very different from "ethnic groups" (not "categories"), they cannot be confused as Wikipedia does. As you point out, anyone can be of a dozen different "ancestries". But nobody can be of as many "ethnicities". If a Brazilian person has Italian, German, Portuguese, and Polish ancestry, then evidently she is of Polish, Portuguese, German, and Italian ancestry. It does not make her an "Italian Brazilian" or a "Polish Brazilian", and much less such a monstruosity as an "Italian German Portuguese Polish Brazilian". Which again shows that "ancestries" and "ethnicities" cannot be conflated; the former are additive and inclusive, the latter are exclusive.


 * Another point is that these "ancestries" are usually related to modern national States. But those States were not created by God along with Adam and Eve, nor do their boundaries necessarily coincide with "ethnic" boundaries, as these articles acritically assume. Clarice Lispector used to be "Ukrainian Brazilian" (and even reported, in what can only be described as an outright lie, as being "proud of her Ukrainian roots"), albeit not being of ethnic Ukrainian ancestry, because the place where she was born nowadays belongs to the Ukrainian national State (that didn't exist, or existed only in an extremely transitory form, when she was born). Carlos Drummond de Andrade is cited as "Scottish Brazilian", because Drummond is known to be a Scottish surname. And I suppose former dictator Emílio Garrastazu Médici was a "Spanish Brazilian" because he was of Basque descent. Those things are unreal; they do not correspond to any actual knowledge about the Brazilian (or Ukrainian, Scottish, Spanish, Basque, or Jewish, for what is worth) people, nor do they explain anything about Lispector or Drummond's writing or Médici's politics.


 * Things may be different where you live in, but in Brazil nobody is a "Spanish Brazilian" because they descend, for instance, from Amadeu Bueno da Ribeira.


 * We deal with the information we have, but we should be able to distinguish what information is in fact information, and what "information" is nothing more than the expression of wishful thinking of the so-called informants. Ninguém (talk) 13:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)


 * ""Groups" isn't a neutral word; it implies an active perception of belonging"
 * No, not necessarily. It can mean just a set of people, based on any criterion. You can even group inanimate objects that have no sense of "belonging", for instance. :)


 * ""Ethnic group" isn't "just a name" that Wikipedia gives to a broad category of articles."
 * Can you find a template specifically for ancestry groups? No. What does that tell you, then? Again: ancestry groups are subsumed under the "ethnic group" rubric.


 * "since ancestral categories (not "groups") are very different from "ethnic groups" (not "categories"), they cannot be confused as Wikipedia does."
 * I like your phrase "ancestral categories". The one problem would be that "category" has a very specific meaning at Wikipedia, as you know, so there's the potential for confusion. So "group" seems more unambiguous.


 * Re: Lispector, I should inform you of our practice of recognizing people's self-perceptions. If she says she's of Ukrainian origin, then she is, as far as I and, I dare say, the overwhelming majority of Wikipedians are concerned. Yes, the borders have changed, but her claim is within reasonable bounds and should be accepted. She's not claiming to be from Mars.


 * You write that these classifications of individuals aren't always informative about those individuals. I agree, and more importantly, I believe that Wikipedia policy agrees. See WP:OCAT.


 * Why don't you propose renaming the article to say, "Brazilians with Spanish ancestry"? SamEV (talk) 22:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the word "group", outside the contexts of sociology or anthropology, does not imply a sence of belonging. This article, however, is within the context of sociology and anthropology, so we should use the word "group" accordingly.

See, for instance, Wikipedia article about Social groups:


 * In the social sciences a group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. (emphasys mine)

Or, more related to this particular discussion, Wikipedia article about Ethnic groups:


 * An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed. This shared heritage may be based upon putative common ancestry, history, kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group; moreover ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness. (emphasys mine)

Ergo, "ancestral categories" - that do not imply "identity", "expectations and obligations", "common heritages", or "consciousness", cannot be akin to "ethnic groups", that imply all that.

I understand your concern about the meaning of "category" within Wikipedia; but it cannot have precedence over the meaning of words in academic discussions about the subjects of the articles. At least I hope no one will Wikipedise Kant's categorical imperative into something else to avoid confusion with Category:Deontological ethics. However, this might or might not apply to "ancestral categories" - I am far from sure that this is an accepted anthropological term; I merely coined it in response to a subject about which Wikipedia cares (way (too)) much, but academic social sciences (perhaps with good reason) don't seem to take too much into account. "Ethnic origins" may be more accurate or neutral.

I am sorry if I somehow gave the impression that Clarice Lispector claimed to be Ukrainian Brazilian. That's completely untrue. Wikipedians have made such claim. And endlessly edit warred about it, calling those who disagree "antisemites". Here are some examples:, , , , , , , , , etc.

Clarice herself only aknowledged one nationality, which was "Brazilian"; when asked, she would wonder about being Brazilian or "Russian" (not Ukrainian), and conclude in favour of the former. She usually avoided the subject, with some good reason. Her mother was raped in Ukraine, in the context of the pogroms that followed the dismantling of the Czarist Empire, probably by some Ukrainian nationalist gang, and horribly died, at age 42, a few years later, already in Brazil, from syphilis, contracted in such rape. She herself was conceived and born when her mother was already ill. So these attempts to make her a posthumous "Ukrainian Brazilian" are false at best, and horribly demeaning and insulting at worst. Ninguém (talk) 14:50, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "This article, however, is within the context of sociology and anthropology, so we should use the word "group" accordingly."
 * This article has to be written for the layperson, per Wikipedia policy. You're not supposed to be writing for social scientists. We should therefore use "group" freely, in the sense of a set of people. If there's ever a need in the article to use it in another sense, then that sense should be indicated.
 * But the issue is moot, anyway, because "Infobox Ethnic group" is not seen by readers. Only editors see it, and you are one of only a couple of editors that I've ever encountered who take the name of the infobox so seriously.
 * "Ergo, "ancestral categories" - that do not imply "identity", "expectations and obligations", "common heritages", or "consciousness", cannot be akin to "ethnic groups", that imply all that." " "Ethnic origins" may be more accurate or neutral."
 * So let's stipulate a definition, and put a caveat next to it, such as: "Spanish Brazilians, in this article, refers to Brazilians of Spanish ancestry. It does not imply an ethnic identity."
 * Thanks for the clarification about Lispector. In her case, if she in fact rejected any identity of "Ukrainian", then she should not be called a Ukrainian Brazilian. (Opinoso's a good guy, btw.)
 * Wow. What a life Lispector had. She had to endure some truly terrible stuff. SamEV (talk) 05:28, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * We shoud write for the layperson, but we should not be sloppy in our use of words. The layperson doesn't make much of a difference between, say, "number" and "algarism", but an encyclopedia must not use those words interchangeably. Also, using the word "group" freely is different from using the phrase "ethnic group" freely; they are lexically different. You cannot, for instance, use "set theory" and "group theory" interchangeably just because you can do it to "set" and "group" sans phrase.


 * "Spanish Brazilians, in this article, refers to Brazilians of Spanish ancestry". Nice, but then we would be talking about something that is absolutely irrelevant: a set of people who have nothing in common with each others, who don't behave in any particular way, who cannot be distinguished from other Brazilians in any way, and who, for the most part, don't even know they belong to such set of people - and would probably reject any such identification, like the Brazilian gaúchos certainly would. An article about "left-handed Brazilians" would be far more relevant than this. On the other hand, though they certainly aren't anything close to 8.5 million (much less 15 million) people, there certainly are people who could be called "Spanish Brazilians", ie, who participate in Spanish-Brazilian associations, Spanish-Brazilian events, and who try to keep alive a "Spanish" identity, etc. Why would we have an article about an irrelevant set of people, but not about something that actually exists and has some weight, albeit quite light?


 * The answer to that question, of course, is the problem. We are keeping an article that has a title that fits a few hundred thousand people, but we are trying to make it like it refers to many million. Just like in Italian Brazilian, German Brazilian, Arab Brazilian, Portuguese Brazilian, etc.


 * And, by the way, anyone who publicly and falsely accuses me (or others, as you have just seen being done to User:Faustian) of being a racist is most definitely not a good guy. Ninguém (talk) 11:20, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't equate common English with sloppiness. Come on, Ninguém. And again, the term "ethnic group" is a moot point, since we're not going to call them that.
 * "Nice, but then we would be talking about something that is absolutely irrelevant: a set of people who have nothing in common with each others"
 * Exactly! Welcome to Wikipedia!
 * We have the article German American, even though German Americans are part of the American mainstream. It's just an article about people of German origin. And sit down for this one: There's even an English American article!
 * You see, Ninguém? This class of articles doesn't mean that these groups are insular ethnic groups separate from the rest of the nation.
 * The fact that there are two (even a few more) definitions of "Spanish Brazilian" can be addressed in the article. No need to settle for just one. Our neutral point of view policy even requires that we acknowledge mulitiplicity of important viewpoints. SamEV (talk) 00:02, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

No, common English is not necessarily sloppiness. The problem with Wikipedia, however, is not common English, it is sloppiness.

Listen, I don't edit articles about German Americans or English Americans. Do you know why? Because I don't know enough about these subjects to edit articles about them.

To anyone looking from the outside, it looks that Americans are effectively divided into hyphenated tribes: English Americans, African Americans, Italian Americans, etc. Wikipedia certainly reinforces such impression. But this is a "narrative"; it may or may not have any relation to American reality. Having no direct experience of American society, and having not read enough reliable books and essays on modern American anthropology, I cannot realise whether yes or not. And so I shut up, and leave hyphenated-American articles to other people. Hoping, quite probably without good reason, that they actually know more than me.

But I do live in Brazil, and I have read a few books on modern Brazilian anthropology. And so I do have a working knowledge of both the Brazilian "narratives" and realities. The "narrative" is different from the American "narrative"; according to it, we are not, unlike the United States, a multicultural society; according to it, there are no such things as hyphenated identities in Brazil. Of course, reality is different; but the "narrative" stems from reality - and impacts it, strongly. These articles superimpose a literal translation of the American "narrative" into Brazil, as if it corresponded not only to Brazilian "narrative", but to Brazilian reality as well. They do that with no regards to Brazilian "narratives" and realities, and they do that through an utterly improper use of sources. Authors that say "X" are reported as saying "not X"; original research conclusions are taken based in the flimsiest evidence; other authors are quoted selectively, leaving aside what is really important in their work to underline very secondary issues, etc. Sources that contradict the POV in the articles are ignored, labeled unreliable, etc. Sources that reinforce the articles' POV are acritically accepted, even when they are obviously unreliable or unverifiable.

You say that ''The fact that there are two (even a few more) definitions of "Spanish Brazilian" can be addressed in the article. No need to settle for just one. Our neutral point of view policy even requires that we acknowledge mulitiplicity of important viewpoints.'' Fine. But this is not what these articles do. They assume a definition, and squeeze figures and facts incompatible with such definition into it. They clearly state a definition into the first line of the lead, something like, "Somewherestanese Brazilians are Brazilian citizens born in Somewheristan or of partial, full, or predominant Somewherestanese descent", and elaborate from that. And what do they elaborate?

They tell us that there are 925,528,028 Somewherestanese Brazilians, based in a source that is directly or indirectly linked to Somewherestanese government or commercial interests, and that does not point to any survey or verifiable calculation. And when you check the given figure for Somewherestanese Brazilians with the figure of actual Somewheristanese immigrants to Brazil, you see that they imply a superhuman rate of fertility.

Then they speak of the "Somewherestanese community" in Brazil, as if such "communities" had any relation to the totality of Brazilians that have "Somewherestanese ancestry". For instance, the article on "Arab Brazilians" used to report 12 million people of Arab descent in Brazil. Leaving aside the fact that this isn't even possible, those were immediately assumed (per the definition in the lead) to be "Arab Brazilians", and then assumed to make part of an "Arab Brazilian community". To put it in a simpler way: when it comes to figures, the lead definition is the base, allowing the article to state a figure that, even when isn't grossly inflated by POV, is high. When the subject is described, a much stricter definition (unstated in the lead), that obviously corresponds to a much smaller number of people is assumed, but the figures are not changed accordingly, resulting in an untrue and undue exaggeration of the subject.

And finally, those articles deal with the "influence" of "Somewherestanese Brazilians". And here every Somewherestanese influence in Brazil is acritically assumed to be related to Somewherestanese immigration to Brazil. Which is evidently false. German immigration to Brazil is much bigger than French immigration. But the overall French influence in Brazil is much bigger and decisive than German influence - because a country may influence others through many other means than migration - commerce, military power, cultural prowess, universality of its cultural contributions, etc.

A particularly nasty part of this is the reported influence of immigrants in Brazilian Portuguese. Most of such reports is merely original research, either outright inventions or misinterpretations of sources. Some examples: the vast lexical imports from Arabic into Portuguese attributed to "Arab Brazilians" (when in fact they are old imports to European Portuguese, due to the conquest of Iberia by the "Moors"; a whole plethora of lexical imports from Italian (which are, for the most part, erudite imports, via Italian literature, not popular imports via colloquial talk); a supposed phonetic influence of "Italian language" in Brazilian Portuguese spoken in São Paulo - that cannot be traced to any particular phone characteristic and curiously took place only in São Paulo city, while other cities, with even proportionally bigger number of immigrants (Campinas, for instance) remain speaking with a good old "caipira" accent - that of lately has been reduced to a "softening" of the Paulistana pronunciation.

All those things are fantasies, of course. But where do they stem of? From sloppy writing, from assuming real identity between things that have similar names, from stating one definition but unstatedly working with others, etc. As you can see, nothing of this requires specialised anthropological terminology to be explained to the reader. Common English will do fine, as long as there is no sloppiness. But sloppiness is the rule.

Of course, maybe you are right - this is Wikipedia, and reliability should not be expected. But then what are we doing here? Ninguém (talk) 12:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I hoped you could tell I was being somewhat facetious. Obviously German Americans do have certain things in common with each other, and the same can be said of English Americans.
 * "Listen, I don't edit articles about German Americans or English Americans."
 * Right. But the point is to illustrate to you that the article Spanish Brazilian belongs to a legitimate class of articles about what you termed "ancestral categories".
 * "These articles superimpose a literal translation of the American "narrative" into Brazil...They do that with no regards to Brazilian "narratives" and realities"
 * Are you saying that the very concept of "Brazilians of Spanish ancestry" is unknown in Brazil? Are you saying that only Wikipedia has ever written about these Brazilians? No social scientist, from anywhere in the world, ever has?
 * The questions you raise about POV, OR, etc are a separate issue, or mostly separate, as they are really about procedure and adherence, or lack thereof, to Wikipedia's own policies. But we're talking about the very raison d'etre of the article.
 * You need to reconcile yourself to the fact that that is settled, because the article exists, i.e., it hasn't been successfully nominated for deletion and isn't currently nominated. So what remains is to make it adhere to WP policies. Starting with NPOV.
 * The definition you imposed on this article, with this business of being 'aware of and connected with Spanish culture', is either wrong or not the principal one. If it isn't changed, it should at least be accompanied by another, Ninguém. SamEV (talk) 17:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC); 17:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The concept of "Brazilians of Spanish descent", of course, isn't unknown in Brazil. But then it doesn't translate into "Hispano-brasileiro", and it refers, for the most part, to an undescribable population: they do not constitute any meaningful segment of the Brazilian population, they aren't richer or poorer than other Brazilians, (unlike, for instance, "Afro-Brazilians", whose demographic characteristics are clearly different from those of the rest of the population). They don't speak Spanish, they speak Portuguese (unlike, for instance, Talian or Hunsrieckisch speaking populations), they don't speak Portuguese with a Spanish accent, they don't consider themselves "Spanish Brazilians", they don't adhere to different religions than other Brazilians (unlike, for instance, "Japanese Brazilians", among whom Buddhism is the second most practiced religion), etc. Wonder why "Spanish is a national ancestry group that was and still is, in most cases, omitted or treated briefly or superficially by most scholars of this subject. Compared to people of Italian, German, Japanese, Arab and Slav ethnic origin, subject of numerous and extensive studies, there are no records that the descendents of Spanish immigrants have been treated with the same interest, even though Spanish immigration was the third largest among immigrant groups in Brazil", as this article states?

I have no doubt that this article exists - gee, I have even been editing it. Making it adhere to NPOV means removing what is POV in it - mainly the idea that all people with any Spanish descent in Brazil are "Spanish Brazilians". If we are going to have an article about "Spanish Brazilians", why should such article be about a different subject - Brazilians of Spanish descent? Why shouldn't it be about "Spanish identity" in Brazil, including clubs, societies, parties, etc., related to this? And if we are going to have an article about Brazilians of Spanish descent, why should we entitle it "Spanish Brazilians", and make nasty edit wars against the inclusion of Heitor Villa-Lobos as one of them? Or, even, why should it have a list of "notable" people, who, for the most part, are not notable due to such ancestry? And, more importantly, what exactly such article should say, besides "there are some Brazilians of Spanish descent; they cannot be distinguished from other Brazilians in any significant way"? Ninguém (talk) 18:21, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "But then it doesn't translate into "Hispano-brasileiro""
 * So let's remove that translation and problem solved! See how easy it is? I'm not sure that we have to provide a translation at all.
 * If the concept is known in Brazil, then this population must be describable. I refuse to believe that language should mysteriously fail when it comes to this group.
 * You then tell me that this group basically doesn't exist. The paradox is that in doing so you prove that they do. You paint a portrait of a group whose demographics places them completely in the mainstream of Brazil. And I believe your portrait. Your problem is that you think that their having such demographics means that they've somehow ceased to exist.
 * You'd be unable to paint that portrait unless it's possible to identify who these people are. Who, after all, are you referring to when you say, "they don't speak Portuguese with a Spanish accent, they don't consider themselves "Spanish Brazilians"," Who is "they"? Surely you are not speaking of phantoms.
 * "They" are a group which exists, and whose demographics you know. They are a group who are a valid subject for an article here.
 * The English American article doesn't exist because English Americans lie outside the mainstream, or speak English differently, or earn more or less than the rest of the country, etc.
 * It's beside the point that Spanish Brazilians haven't been studied as much as some of the other Brazilians. (And did you notice that your quotation calls them a "national ancestry group"? Isn't that what I kept telling you they are, instead of an ethnic group?) The important thing is that there have been studies. This group is a valid subject of inquiry, your own words prove.
 * "Making it adhere to NPOV means removing what is POV"
 * POV in the sense of WP editor POV. The article is supposed to have POVs, but they have to be the significant POVs of experts. So if "the idea that all people with any Spanish descent in Brazil are "Spanish Brazilians"" is a significant expert POV, it belongs in the article.
 * "Spanish Brazilians", "Brazilians of Spanish descent", "Spanish identity"—why can't the article be partly about each of these? In any case, these subjects are so closely related that an article on one would necessarily be in part an article on the others.
 * You ask 'what can we say about them?'. Obviously a lot! We have information about their immigration to Brazil. We have info about the areas of Spain whence they came. We have info about when they came. We have info about where they settled in Brazil. We know some things about their history once they arrived in Brazil. We have info about what occupations they engaged in. We know that they ultimately became part of Brazil's mainstream. We know many names of people who have this ancestry. We know — we know many things, as you can see. We know more than enough to write a nice little, or big, article that is well sourced and complies with this project's policies and spirit. SamEV (talk) 21:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Some things exist, but there is no available data about them.

"My" quotation is a quotation from the article, not from any expert source.

Removing POV means to remove editor POV, not expert POV. You say, if "the idea that all people with any Spanish descent in Brazil are 'Spanish Brazilians'" is a significant expert POV, it belongs in the article." Exactly. If it was a significant expert POV, it should belong in the article. The point is, is it a significant expert POV? If so, expert sources should be found and placed in the article, referencing the lead's initial statement. The problem, as I see it, is that no such sources exist (and this is the reason they are not cited - and were indeed never cited - in the article), because "the idea that all people with any Spanish descent in Brazil are "Spanish Brazilians"" isn't a significant expert POV. If it is not a significant expert POV, it doesn't belong in the article, do you agree?

You say, ''We have information about their immigration to Brazil. We have info about the areas of Spain whence they came. We have info about when they came. We have info about where they settled in Brazil. We know some things about their history once they arrived in Brazil. We have info about what occupations they engaged in.'' Let me disagree. We know such things about people who lived, and immigrated to Brazil, about a century ago. The apparently neutral pronoun "they", here, stands for a conflation: it stands both for nowadays Brazilians of Spanish descent and for early 20th century Spanish immigrants to Brazil. But they aren't the same people. Nowadays Brazilians of Spanish descent didn't immigrate to Brazil. "They" didn't come from any areas in Spain. "They" didn't settle in any areas in Brazil. The information we have, of course, is not about "them", but about a different set of people, early 20th century Spanish immigrants to Brazil, and, evidently, belongs in Spanish immigration to Brazil, not in Spanish Brazilian. Ninguém (talk) 11:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "Some things exist, but there is no available data about them."
 * Luckily, that's not the case with this subject.
 * ""My" quotation is a quotation from the article, not from any expert source."
 * It was your choice to quote the article, Ninguém. It was your argument.
 * "Removing POV means to remove editor POV, not expert POV."
 * Unfortunately, you substituted in your own POV. You failed to improve the article by doing that.
 * How significant is the POV that Spanish Brazilians are only those Brazilians who are aware of and connected to Spanish culture?
 * "If it is not a significant expert POV, it doesn't belong in the article, do you agree?"
 * Of course I do. I just said that.
 * What unbelievable things you are saying now, Ninguém. You aren't seriously saying that Spanish Brazilians, however defined, didn't originate with Spanish immigrants to Brazil, are you? Whom did they originate with? Are they autochthonous to Brazil, rising out of its very soil, sometime in the 20th century!? Do you not know that there's a "History" section, as their should be? From what you say, you seem to be arguing that there should be no mention of how Spanish Brazilians's Spanish ancestors got to Brazil! Amazing. SamEV (talk) 17:54, 25 June 2010 (UTC); 18:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

You ask how significant the POV that "Spanish Brazilians are only those Brazilians who are aware of and connected to Spanish culture" is. This is the commonplace view in Brazil. But, agree, commonplace isn't a reliable source. There are not many sources that deal with "Spanish Brazilians", so this may be difficult. We do have an expert, Migule Angel García, who says something similar regarding "Italian Brazilians" - can we apply it by analogy?

Do you have expert sources that say that all Brazilians of any Spanish descent are "Spanish Brazilians"? Indeed, do you have any expert sources saying anything about "Spanish-Brazilians"? If such sources don't exist, may we completely delete this article and put the issue to rest? Ninguém (talk) 22:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about making an analogy; it seems kind of OR. But we could enlist the aid of others in making that decision. Keep in mind that such a view ('aware and connected') would only be one of the ones presented in this article.
 * Re: expert sources, are you saying there aren't any? Because if you are, then may I ask how it is you know anything about Spanish Brazilian demographics? Did you invent everything you said about them? SamEV (talk) 03:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

There are expert sources about Spanish immigration to Brazil. There are expert sources about Brazilians of Spanish descent. I don't think there are expert sources saying that all Brazilians of Spanish descent are "Spanish Brazilians". Are there any? If there aren't, then this article must be deleted or renamed. Ninguém (talk) 05:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for clarifying about expert sources. On the article title, you just called the group "Brazilians of Spanish descent". That title would be fine with me. SamEV (talk) 21:42, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Just for your information, there is precedent for considering "Portuguese Brazilians" as a different set of people from "Brazilians of Portuguese descent"; for instance, see (So what? He had nothing to do with Portugal). As you see, the well established fact that Vargas was of Portuguese Azorean descent does not imply that he was a Portuguese Brazilian, because he "had nothing to do with Portugal". I don't know why this perfect logic is contested here. Ninguém (talk) 11:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Funny that user Ninguém recently used the term "Afro-Brazilian" to describe Brazilians of Black skin. But many "Afro-Brazilians" are descendants of African slaves who arrived in Brazil as early as in the 16th century. If according to Ninguém a person can be called "Afro-Brazilian" because he\she has Black skin and is descended from 16th-century slaves, why doesn't he want people of 18th century Spanish descent to be labeled as "Spanish Brazilian"?

What a contradition!!

About Getúlio Vargas, there are more "representative" Brazilians of Portuguese descent than him. Opinoso (talk) 00:40, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You know pretty well that I consider "Afro-Brazilian" a misnomer, which is the reason I use it within quote marks. So, no, there is no contradiction here.


 * About Vargas, maybe there are Brazilians of Portuguese descent that are more "representative" than him. Quite dubious; the man was a central character in Brazilian 20th century history - like him or not, and I certainly don't (on the contrary of your idol Darcy Ribeiro, who believes he was the most wonderful statesman in Brazilian history). But you didn't remove him "claiming" that there are more representative people; you removed him "claiming" that he "had nothing to do with Portugal". So you are now misreading yourself; congratulations, new record. But indeed he "had nothing to do with Portugal". You were right in this. And that (having or not having anything to do with Portugal) should be the criterion. You were again right. Now explain us why you want to keep in this article people who have nothing to do with Spain, and we may have a discussion about what is and what is not a contradiction. Ninguém (talk) 15:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Edit summaries
The article is now being edited by Ninguém and a person who does not log in. Ninguém conscientiously supplies edit summaries. The other person virtually never does so.

Please supply edit summaries. -- Hoary (talk) 22:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)