{"id":19942,"date":"2015-01-21T13:32:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T16:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=19942"},"modified":"2016-01-28T17:39:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T20:39:36","slug":"barbara-nascimento-teacher-and-activist-vidigal-is-fully-booked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=19942","title":{"rendered":"B\u00e1rbara Nascimento, Teacher and Activist: “Vidigal is fully booked”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

For the original in Portuguese, published in O Globo, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

A Rio native\u00a0documents memories of the favela where she was born. For her, the occupation of Vidigal<\/a> by the middle class and foreigners will create an exodus and destroy the identity of the favela.<\/em><\/h3>\n

B\u00e1rbara Nascimento:<\/strong> I am 36 years old and I was born in Vidigal, where I live. My mother is from Bahia, I have a three year-old son and I am married to a washing machine repairman. I studied Language and Literature\u00a0at the Federal University of Rio (UFRJ), and now I teach Portuguese and literature in a state school here on the hill. I am also an activist in defense of the favela and its culture<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Tell me something I don\u2019t know.<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> Vidigal is fully booked. I am going to place a billboard on the road saying that. There are traffic jams. Trucks going up and down the hill, hotels, there\u2019s even a Belmonte [a bar chain]. Since when is Belmonte something for favelas? There are blackouts every other day. People think it\u2019s drugs being carried up the hill, but these blackouts are something else: it’s a failure of the electrical power supply in a high density area.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: What is happening?<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> That is what I am studying for my master’s degree. The relation of those who are here to those who come from outside. How they deal with the visitors, the middle class that buys their neighbor\u2019s house, the foreigners, and those who attend the parties in the favelas where you can\u2019t even find favela residents.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Have you been to one of these parties?<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> I have been once, and I don\u2019t plan to go again. Besides me, there were only three other people from Vidigal: the ticket agent, the bouncer, and an actor. The actor and I\u00a0don\u2019t even really count. I earn a better salary and I have\u00a0a university degree. But where are the people who live a tough life?<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Are you against coexistence?<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> No way! I am against appropriation. I am against going for a walk with my son and being photographed. I\u2019m not a monkey. And I\u2019m against the rise of\u00a0real estate prices<\/a>. What about people who rent a house? A while ago, people showed interest in Rua Nova and Rua 3, which are not part of the favela. Now they want the places that are ours.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: \u201cOurs\u201d, whose?<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> I argue that favelas are for favela residents. They have already prohibited the funk parties<\/a>, putting an end to peoples’ recreation. This kind of thing frustrates people. A long time ago samba was associated with thuggery, which is why they wanted to prohibit it. It\u2019s exactly the same with funk. Was it financed by the drug traffickers? Yes, it was. But why doesn’t the state finance it? Because it\u2019s poor people\u2019s music! That\u2019s why I find real peaceful coexistence difficult to achieve.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: You always use the term favela instead of community.<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> Every group can be perceived as a community, and it doesn\u2019t have a personality. Favela means something<\/a>. A kind of place, a history, it\u2019s a nice word. It\u2019s in the music. What is a community, really? Using the word community for a favela is like using the euphemism \u201cbrunette\u201d instead of saying black.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: What kinds of memories are you collecting?<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> One of the focuses is the movement in defense of favelas that originated in the 1970s; the war as narrated by us and not by a sociologist, or even worse, a TV presenter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Tell us one episode.<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> There\u2019s the one about a truck that came in to remove residents. Guess what truck it was?<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: I have no idea.<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> From Comlurb [garbage collection truck]. A dumpster to remove favela residents. People provided coffee<\/a> and a barbecue for the drivers, who were in fact just as humble as us, until lawyer Bento Rubi\u00e3o got here to prevent the removal.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: How is the UPP (Pacifying Police Unit)<\/a> going?<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong> Well, we no longer see armed thugs all over the place watching\u00a0us. But they are still there on the top of the hill; they fire shots. Instead of one faction now we have two.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: What can the story of Vidigal teach Rio and Brazil?<\/h3>\n

BN:<\/strong>\u00a0When a person\u00a0knows his\u00a0place\u00a0he (or she)\u00a0recognizes himself\u00a0as an individual. Here, a population that is already marginalized runs the\u00a0risk of losing its\u00a0sense of belonging: our\u00a0home\u00a0is\u00a0being denied us. (Documenting) memory can teach us\u00a0that there is a history, an identity<\/a>, and that we need to stay and fight against gentrification<\/a>. And that this might inspire other people.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original in Portuguese, published in O Globo, click\u00a0here. A Rio native\u00a0documents memories of the favela where she was born. For her, the occupation of Vidigal by the middle class […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":19944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1267,1288,1290,1268,1284,1330,328],"tags":[771,501,65,1375,10,156,363],"writer":[1516],"translator":[699],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gentrificationwatch","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-civilsociety","10":"category-favelaculture","11":"category-interviews-profiles","12":"category-translation","13":"category-understanding-rio","14":"tag-community-pride","15":"tag-funk","16":"tag-gentrification","17":"tag-housing-deficit","18":"tag-real-estate-speculation","19":"tag-south-zone","20":"tag-vidigal","21":"writer-arnaldo-bloch","22":"translator-luana-gama"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19942"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=19942"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=19942"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=19942"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=19942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}