Thiago Antonio

A Permanent Move from Brazil

Thiago Nunes Antonio, class of 2022, was born and raised in Sāo Paulo, Brazil until he was 18, right before his arrival to Miami University. Antonio and his family visited the U.S. frequently, and he had already planned to come here for college when it just so happened that his father was transferred to the U.S. for his job at the same time. Since the timing worked out for their family, Antonio, his sister, and his parents moved to New Jersey in February 2018.

 

When Antonio’s family moved, they never looked back. Since Brazil suffers from such high unemployment rates and has suffered from corruption the past 5-10 years, they plan to stay in the U.S. and to not move back to Brazil. Although Antonio feels as though he is definitely qualified to work in Brazil, he knows that the States can offer him more opportunities. With this, his plan for the future is to also stay in the U.S., and always have Brazil in his back pocket if he ever did want to return.

 

Although Antonio now sees Brazil as a vacation destination, he manages to keep up with all of his high school and soccer friends from back home. He talks to his family and friends everyday and finds new ways to stay in touch whether it be through FaceTime or gaming. 

 

Brazilian Childhood

As Antonio spent his childhood in Brazil, he discusses how different the education and sport system is in Brazil versus his experience in the States.

 

When he made friends in the U.S., he noticed that many of them had gone to public schools and that their schools were able to provide lots of resources for the students due to good funding from the government. This is the opposite in Brazil. Oftentimes, people in Brazil do not get a good education because they cannot afford it.

 

“Public schools are not good over there. At all. And it’s unfortunate because that means that most of the people in Brazil don’t have a good education because most of the people, unfortunately, are poor.”

 

The public schools are not as successful as in the United States. Antonio says that he is one of the lucky people who was able to go to a good private school in order to get a better education.

 

He also touches on how his experience of college in the U.S. seems different than those of his friends attending college in Brazil.

 

“In terms of college education, which I always say is really different. [...] My friends right now, they go to college, they work of course. So you work while you are a college student. And then you have to do (a year or 2), if I’m not wrong, of college at night. So you go to college at 6 p.m. and leave at 11 p.m. and that’s college for your last year or third year of college. And that’s college in Brazil. You go, you have your classes, and you come back to home. It’s not in the same place.”

 

Living on his own and having campus and home be in the same space taught Antonio how to live on his own, create his own routine and schedule, and try new things. He feels as though he is free to do what he wants in this environment and there are lots of benefits that add up, giving him a good education at Miami.

 

Growing up as a soccer player, he also talks about how in Brazil, it is uncommon to have a high level of athletics tied to a certain high school. Instead, they have clubs outside of school that are normally famous around the area or the country that are more competitive than school teams. These are the athletes who are considered for higher ranked sports (leagues in the country, country team, etc.), not those who play high school sports. With that being said, sports fans in Brazil do not watch college sports like some people religiously do in the U.S. It would be like watching high school sports, which to them is not as relevant.

 

Politics and Living through Turbulence

As mentioned earlier, Antonio and his family have decided to stay in the U.S. because of the current precarious conditions in Brazil. He talked about how things were looking good for Brazil until he was about 13 or 14 years old. That’s when he noticed that political parties were crashing more frequently causing turbulence in the country as well as corruption. He reflects on the fact that there was a lot going on behind the scenes as he grew up, but corruption was officially exposed when he was entering his teenage years with Operation Lava Jato.

 

Antonio was aware of what was going on in his country, and his parents even took to the streets to participate in peaceful protests. By being raised in this environment, Antonio grew up with his own political opinions.

 

“I’m glad to say that I have the free will to do whatever I want because of my parents. They aren’t commanding and stuff like that.”

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Antonio explains that most people in Brazil just vote against the candidate they dislike. However, his parents always taught him to do research prior to voting. As a Brazilian citizen, you are required to vote in elections. With this being said, he plans to do research before the election this year, as the presidency (Bolsonaro’s administration, more specifically) has not been in a good place the last couple of years. When asked about Bolsonaro and his feelings towards his contributions to Brazil, Antonio had lots to say about how he has damaged the country.

 

“Bolsonaro has done absolutely nothing to the country during the pandemic. He had the chance to claim himself as the best leader that Brazil has ever had but he simply decided to follow a route which was fake. He constantly claimed the virus was fake, that existing medicines could cure infected people, provided no resources to states that were dying from the virus. Additionally, he was constantly fighting against the main news channels by providing misinformation and constantly creating agglomerations and fiascos. Meanwhile, he was trying to approve nonsense laws such as the right to carry guns. Stuff like that are one or two of several examples that he did wrong for the country, including some corruption schemes that were found with his family - his motto for winning the election was ‘fighting against corruption’”.

 

Something he wants to keep in mind is that he is not in Brazil at this time, so he wants to make sure that whoever he votes for is truly doing the best for the people in the country, not that it just looks good from an outside perspective.

 

Life on Miami’s Campus

He says that culturally, he does not see too many differences between the U.S. and Brazil and he feels welcomed on Miami’s campus.

 

“I never felt like I was being put down [...] I always felt welcomed here, especially in Oxford. [My friends] always felt like this (Brazilian) side of me was cool to understand and they always want to know more about it. They’re really engaged in my culture [...] and how we do or view or see stuff differently. So I always felt like I was in a nice place and I never regret coming to Miami.”

 

When it comes to representation, Antonio has noticed how there isn't really any aspect of Brazilian culture shared on campus, but that’s just because the Brazilian population on campus is so small. He has fortunately gotten to know other Brazilians on campus and they were even able to enjoy a typical Brazilian barbecue party (churrasco) together.

 

This is definitely one of the things Antonio misses most about Brazil: the casual get-togethers with some drinks and some food, as well as just going out with friends on the weekends. As Oxford is a small town, Antonio misses getting the opportunity to always have something to do, but still loves the environment and is happy to be where he is.

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