Why did you choose Brazil, Ecuador and/or India for your Global Citizen Year?
Why did you choose Brazil, Ecuador and/or India for your Global Citizen Year? I am a Global Citizen Year fellow. I participated in the program year 2011 in Bahia, Brazil. Brazil produced a list of anomalies for me. I found grandiose narratives of the United States and Brazil had offered me, a curious American, a lesson on contrast. The shared narrative in conquest and colonialism identified parallel similarities emerging on race and culture in both countries. Brazil and U.S. dwellers remain members of the New World. Indeed, we share a similar narrative -- a similar historical trauma -- that perhaps diminishes with the proximal distance. I had chosen Brazil for my Global Citizen Year because the layers of peculiarity in language and race specifically intrigued me. I wondered how language impacted my world view. Further how race in historical and colonial terms developed. H istorically in a country with strong economic leverage, Brazil has informed my...