Andrew G. Britt, PhD

Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, published an article about I’ll Samba Someplace Else in the July issue. Read an excerpt of Winter’s piece below, and find the full article here: “The Hidden History of São Paulo’s ‘Japanese’ Neighborhood.”

“As Andrew G. Britt writes in his new book I’ll Samba Someplace Else, Liberdade had another identity well before the arrival of the Japanese—as a home to freed slaves. This story remains largely unknown among Brazilians, even though the neighborhood’s true origin is, after all, (probably) contained in its name…

“How could this history be so often ignored? As Britt, an assistant professor at the University of Texas, documents extensively, the city had a custom of paving over, literally, its Black past. Liberdade and other historically Black neighborhoods including Bexiga and Saracura were targeted for destruction when 20th-century planners wanted to build highways and otherwise modernize the city.”