PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

While German discourses depicted the German immigrants in southern Brazil as superior cultural pioneerswho would preserve German language and culture, this article portrays eleven biographies of German immigrants in Brazil in order to contrast these ethnic discourses with the everyday-life of the immigrants. "Germanness" was used and adapted in different ways: its importance was sometimes overemphasized, sometimes relativized, sometimes even rejected. As well as this, other concepts of identity were at play such as religion, political standpoints, class and citizenship. Germanness was thus a contested category, used as a political argument in nationalist discussions on immigration.