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The United States is a country without a name: America is the name of the continent where, among others, the states that were once English colonies united. Brazil is a name without a country. The English seem to have stolen the name of the continent and given it to the country they founded. The Portuguese seem not to have really founded a country, but managed to suggest that they landed in a part of America that was absolutely Other, and they called it Brazil.

The parallel with the United States is inevitable. If all the countries in the world today must measure themselves against "America," position themselves in relation to the American Empire, and if the other countries in America have to do so in an even more direct way - comparing their repsective histories to that of their stronger and more fortunate brother - Brazil's case is even more acute, since the mirror image is more evident and the alienation more radical. Brazil is America's other giant, the other melting pot of races and cultures, the other promised land to European and Asian immigrants, the Other. The double, the shadow, the negative image of the great adventure of the New World.

And so, black-eyed peas and rice or "Hoppin' John" even collard greens and pig's feet, are not so much arbitrary predilections of the"nigra" as they are symbolic defiance; we shall celebrate on a day of our choosing in honor of those events and souls who are an honor to us. Yes, we eat potato salad on Independence day, but a shortage of potatoes up and down Brooklyn's Nostrand Avenue in July will not create the serious consternation and sadness I saw/experienced one New Year's Eve when there weren't no chitlins to be found.