Travels in an Age of Ideology: An Analysis of J. Harding’s 1941 Travelogue I Like Brazil
By Tyler Lucero

Jack Harding’s decision to take a boat to Brazil in the summer of 1940 to “gather literary material” (13) initially seems the epitome of caprice, yet the vibrant depictions of Brazilian bounty, virtue, and democracy that fill the ensuing pages of I Like Brazil indicate that this trip was anything but a simple diversion for the author. Writing in a time when economic failure at home and political radicalization abroad prompted Americans to reflect on the merits of their markets and liberties, Harding approaches Brazil as one searching for confirmation of his home nation’s convictions and institutions. Indeed, writing in the context of a worldwide rise of ideals antithetical to American values, Harding painstakingly and promotionally paints Brazil as a budding, cosmopolitan society similar to – and in some ways even an improvement upon – democracy in the United States. Moreover, the traveler portrays the “heart-warming” Brazilian people as in need and worthy of American assistance and as individuals on whose continued strength American values depend in a time when developing nations seemed in danger of “[swinging] into another and less desirable orbit … [and into] the covetous grasp of the have-nots” (333, 48). Caught in the ideological tensions of the troubled times in which he wrote, Harding alternatingly patronizes and praises Vargas-era “Brazilian democracy” in an attempt to confirm for Americans the health of their ideals abroad and convince them of the need to nurture their “good neighbor” to the South (109, 316).

The influence of worldwide ideological tension during the 1930s and 1940s on I Like Brazil’s text is most evident in the length at which Harding favorably discusses the contemporaneous Vargas regime and its politics. The fact that the author devotes an entire final chapter – which he entitles “Good Neighbor” – to a positive assessment of the Vargas administration suggests that he thought it important to leave his readers with an affirmation of the democratic, pragmatic nature of Brazilian polity. Indeed, in lauding Vargas as a ruler “who wields well his great power” (317) and whose rule has “made more social progress in ten years than in the entire history of the country” (262), Harding attempts to neutralize concerns about a regime that might seem perilously dictatorial. It is an American troubled by democratic trajectories elsewhere in the world that praises Vargas for having ended a “succession of profligate, greedy, dishonest administrations” by “surrounding himself with young, able, vigorous leaders” (316, 317). More generally, the Brazilian government system is described as having “none of the rigid control of industry one finds in the dictator countries” and allowing “freedom of speech, … to the extent that [the author] never heard of anybody’s being jailed for expressing opposition to the Vargas regime” (318, 319). These claims are difficult to reconcile with contemporaneous corporativist integration of unions into the Brazilian state and the suppression of the Brazilian Communist Party and the 1932 São Paulo revolutionaries; the omission of these details in favor of making generalizations about the Brazilian polity’s similarity to American democracy can in some ways be seen as a product of contemporaneous ideological uncertainty. Harding goes on to echo Americans’ appraisals of their own history by asserting that “except for the upheaval which won them independence from their European masters, Brazil [has] never had a revolution” (333). In this way, Harding, influenced by the political radicalization in the world around him, attempts to assimilate the regime he saw in Brazil to those democratic ideals Americans felt were threatened in 1940; in this ideological time, his intent is to confirm for himself and his countrymen that the United States has a friend in Vargas and in Brazil.

This purpose is also evident in the care Harding takes to dissociate what he admits is a right-leaning regime, as well as German, Italian, and Japanese immigrant populations in Brazil, from the rising fascist regimes in Europe and Asia. His assertion that the “few newspapers … sympathetic to Germans” do not have “large circulation” and are “distinctly in the minority” (295) implies that he anticipated that his readership would be dubious of Brazil given its ethnic make-up. Indeed, answering concerns bred in an age of divisions, Harding describes the Germans and Japanese encounters in his journeys as “courteous as all Brazilian people” (135) and averse to the contemporaneous radicalizations in their home countries. It is important to note, however, that the Germans and Japanese with whom Harding conversed may not be representative of their respective populations in Brazil as a whole, as they were able to speak English to express their sentiments to Harding and thus may have been predisposed to identification with the Anglophone Allies. The fact that Harding does not consider or acknowledge this bias is an indication of the ideological purpose for which he writes. To a similar end, Harding juxtaposes relatively benign Brazilian government policy with the contemporaneous and familiar actions of the Nazis in Germany, casting a favorable light on the Brazilian government’s recognition of private rights in opposition to “the Nazi philosophy of ‘You are nothing, the state is all’” that is “not dished out to Brazilians” (318). Harding emphasizes that “Vargas summarily disbanded” the Integralist “Green Shirts” in the final sentences of the book, a placement that is indicative of Harding’s ideological perspective and purpose. Ultimately, Harding indicates that “[he does not] believe Getuilo Vargas is actually a fascist” (320), responding to what must have been a grave concern in an uncertain time for American democracy and capitalism.

Harding’s portrayal of the Brazilian leadership and people as passionately pro-American is also an artifact of an ideological era. Many Brazilians Harding meets – from a young black jehu (19) to Gilberto Freyre (291) – are noted to have spoken in “very fluent English.” Likewise, national leaders, including the Foreign Minister, are reported to have expressed veneration for the Monroe Doctrine during interviews with the author, and a description of Rio’s Edifico Monroe as “the world’s only palace dedicated to the Monroe Doctrine” figures prominently in Harding’s initial musings on the capital city. The following conclusion that “Rio is a palace honoring the Monroe Doctrine” is distinctly the interpretation of an American in an era that challenged his core beliefs. In summary, Harding provides Americans concerned about their democracy and markets the simple reassurance that “they [the Brazilians] like us” (316).

Playing on his readership’s fears in a tumultuous time, Harding seeks to heighten Americans’ emotional investment in Brazil by subtly insinuating that all its bounty and democracy “could swing into another and a less desirable orbit” (48). In highlighting the quick demise of the export city of Breves due to wartime depression in demand for exports (103) and lamenting the country’s technological inability to use its copious iron ore deposits to produce steel (220), Harding seeks to convince the readership that Brazil is in need of protection in the tumult of the coming 1940s. The Portuguese word saudade – defined for the reader as a sense of tragic melancholy not expressed exactly by any English word or phrase – makes humorously continuous reappearances in the text as Brazilians describe their nation; the intention of this repetition, however, is far from light-hearted. Considered in the context of Harding’s ideological tone, Harding’s repetition of this morose word exemplifies his desire to enlist the United States in the preservation of a potentially friendly nation at a time when Americans faced many enemies.

The fragility of Brazil and its democracy suggested in Harding’s travelogue is made ever more distressing to his 1940s American readership by his promotion of the belief that allowing Brazil to fall into “the covetous grasp of the have-nots” would be to lose a “country of all countries where social democracy really works” (90). Indeed, Harding stresses that, because Brazil has perfected democracy in a number of ways, to lose Brazil in that tumultuous time would be tragic. The author particularly focuses on Brazil’s social and sexual integration as indications of Brazil’s democratic maturity: discussing miscegenation and the mingling of “people of all shades” at length, Harding casts Brazilian society as free from the racial prejudices that tarnished the United States at the time. Specifically, he observes that while whites elsewhere avoid tanning to maintain the whiteness that gives them ascendance, Brazilian whites show no qualms about tanning, as skin color apparently has little influence on one’s status (68). This reaffirms the perfection of Brazil as “the most absorbent of all countries” and a nation “where all races are one and a man’s color is his own business” (109). The racial harmony Harding describes would have resonated with intellectual Americans living in a time of continued segregation in the United States and impelled them to act in protection of Brazil. Brazilian people are seen as “intensely” courteous in the travelogue, at one point stepping aside to allow Harding the privilege of boarding an airplane first; “can you imagine passengers [in the United States] standing back to let a visiting Brazilian board first?” Harding lamentingly asks his readers (54). In addition, Harding depicts the Brazilian people as more connected to their land and heritage. He admires the mosaic sidewalks, ornate statues, and stately museums and “can’t help but [think] there is something in that idea that we could use in the United States” (211). Given the time in which he wrote, it seems Harding saw Brazil’s relative racial equality, rich heritage, virtue, and affinity to the natural world as antidotes to the contemporaneous rise of dehumanizing dictatorships and thus worthy of American protection.

As the twentieth century progressed, ideological considerations continued to color the manner in which Brazil was presented to and understood by citizens of the United States. In the Cold War era, for example, the American government supported the 1964 coup against President João Goulart because it was concerned about his leftist leanings. As ideology drove American action later in the century, so to did wartime tension and economic depression inform the narrative Harding provides in I Like Brazil in the early 1940s. Indeed, the marked ideological awareness of “close-up of a good neighbor” in this travelogue is an artifact of a world in troubled times. South America’s largest nation has been a canvas on which diverse European and American foreigners have projected their ambitions and dreams, and Harding’s Brazil is a democratic delight, a place to invest American hopes in an age of unsettling uncertainty.

Bibliography:

Jack Harding, I Like Brazil: A Close-up of a Good Neighbor (Indianapolis: The Bobs-Merrill Company, 1941).