Prismatic Blog

I have been thinking for months about writing a “masterpost” compiling the good, the bad and the ugly (lol) parts of being an immigrant. After Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl show, it seems the time has finally arrived.

For context, I was born, raised and settled for 27 years in the capital of Brazil (and I simply LOVE it when Irish people ask the city I’m from and they recognise it’s the capital). My experience “being Brazilian” cannot be compared to those living in other places, because guess what, it’s the fifth biggest country in the world. Sometimes, even Brazilians forget about that and try to make their experiences universal (if your DDD is 11 or 21, yes, I am talking to you).

In the past two years, I learned to love and hate my own country, but I also learned to love and hate the country I am currently living in. Sometimes I feel lonely amongst people because they expect me to perform the stereotypical role of the super loud, fun, and talkative Brazilian girl. You would probably expect this from Europeans or any other “gringos” in general, but the fun-not-so-fun part is… It actually happens amongst Brazilians as well! Which leads us to…

Reverse Cultural Shock

Tá passadah?

As I mentioned before, I’m from the capital of Brazil, Brasilia (which can be confusing for some languages that pronounce “Brasilia” as the name of the country lmao). We are usually seen by people from the other states as “cold” or “insensitive”. Well, it is true that brasilienses (don’t know how to translate demonyms) don’t do small talk (most of them loathe it, including me), have the terrible habit of not greeting people (I do like greeting people, but unfortunately stopped doing that after being ignored a lot of times), and sometimes they even pretend not to see you just that they don’t have to talk to you. Of course, we are still Brazilians, still Latinos, still warmer than 99% of Europeans (graças a Deus!!!!). But when I meet a ~stereotypical carioca~, for example, they usually expect the same warmth and openness that I unfortunately cannot reciprocate, and it ends up being frustrating for both parties. I have also noticed that the Brazilian community here is bound by a shared feeling of constant homesickness that I absolutely cannot relate to. Does it mean I hate my country? Absolutely not!!! I’m proud to have been born there. I love my language, I love how kind and empathetic we are (in general…), but I simply wasn’t happy there.

Neurodivergent struggles

Okay, now you already know that my city made me a weirdo who doesn’t do small talk and doesn’t say “good morning” to people. What could be worse? Being born autistic in this environment where everybody needs to be a social butterfly, where your neighbours party till it’s 5am, where loud motorcycles run everywhere, where saying no is absolutely banned, where setting boundaries to your own family is seen as being rude, where honest communication is not valued because you should always anticipate people’s problems (especially at work!!!), where you MUST hug and kiss people you have never seen before, where your peers will pressure you to engage in the hookup culture, and don’t even get me started on the consumerism culture that we imported from our unofficial colonisers the USA.

Again, that doesn’t mean I hate my country! I’m the broken one, I completely understand why everyone loves it so much. I also love it as a tourist. What I don’t really understand, though, is why some Brazilians move to Europe (I am referring to Europe as a continent because similar behaviour can be observed in other countries, even Portugal, which is obviously culturally similar) if they hate the weather, hate the food, hate the people, hate everything but themselves. They usually stick to the Brazilian bubble, where they only listen to Brazilian music, only eat Brazilian food, only go to Brazilian events, and every Brazilian who does not partake in their negativity cycle is frowned upon. Well, actually, I do. They live a miserable life where every penny must be spent on weekly Ryanair tickets to visit different countries and collect flags on their Instagram bios, even if they step on said country for only a couple of hours. Your first salary must be directed to purchasing the newest iPhone to brag about the “euro purchasing power”, even if you are sharing a flat with other fifteen people, no one needs to know about that. If you are a woman who happens to date a white European man, you must flash him to everyone as your life achievement. Oh, and don’t forget to visit your country every single year to say insensitive things like “I love it when the price of euro rises up, everything gets so cheap to me”, while most of the country lives in poverty, or “I honestly don’t understand why Brazilians spend 60 reais on Nutella biscuits, it’s only 3.50 where I live” (mind you, Nutella biscuits aren’t officially sold in the country and those inflated prices that you see in videos are literal people who bought them abroad to resell because dumb stupid people make sensationalist videos).

Is the grass really greener in the Emerald Isle?

Well, it literally is. Especially when you come from the driest place ever that gave you constant nosebleeds to move to a country that looks like a giant Windows XP landscape. But the romanticising part stops here.

I live in Dublin. I already know what you fuckers are going to say: “Dublin is a shithole!!!! It does not represent Ireland!!!!! People are hostile there but the Irish countryside is completely different!!!!!!!”. Bitch, guess what, the country’s whole population is not even two times bigger than my city’s, not everyone finds happiness being only surrounded by cows and sheep. Some of us actually enjoy getting Vietnamese takeaway on Monday, going to an indie film exhibit on Thursday, and then attending a concert on the weekends without taking a two-hour train. If your lovely tiny village where there is only Penneys and Dunnes Stores to hang out truly makes you happy, kudos to you! God forbid a woman who wants to live her life without being harassed in the streets and has to constantly deal with those “ironic” comments from people who think they are a better flavour of immigrants just because they chose the eremite lifestyle.

Having said that, I feel 100% on my right to complain about the city’s safety without listening to pretentious comments trying to blame the victim like “hurr durr that’s why I don’t go to the city centre”. Brazilian Deliveroo riders are constantly being beaten up by Irish teens. It’s not exclusive to Dublin, mind you; the same thing has happened in Cork and Limerick as well. A Brazilian black woman was insulted by an old lady, and that video went so viral that even my uncle sent me a message to check if I was okay because he was worried about them being racist to me. I won’t list the countless times my husband and I have been verbally or even physically attacked due to “teens with antisocial behaviour” that are basically normalised and seen as “part of the experience of growing up in Ireland”.

Hard to believe, I know, but I actually feel happier here. I feel free from the invasive habits of my Latino family. I feel free from the daily 30ºC (and higher!) temperatures that made me constantly sweaty, moody, and overstimulated. Yes, I do prefer 0ºC and the constant rains, thank you. I feel free from a judgmental society that sees my preppy-meets-dark-academia outfits as weird or my midi skirts as prudish. As you can imagine, the very same outfits here receive countless praises and approval. Those who have only moved abroad to earn more money will never understand me. I cannot feel nostalgic about a place that made me feel inadequate my whole life. Just because I’m an immigrant, that doesn’t mean that every single conversation starter has to be “oh, you must miss a lot about your country”, it actually makes me uncomfortable because then I have to pretend I do.

At this point, if you are Brazilian like me, you must think I’m a pick-me girl with a vira-lata complex, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I love my country, love my people, but I also think we must have accountability for our own toxic behaviour. I started this post with Bad Bunny, and the reason for that is: for many years, Brazilians would not see themselves as Latinos. It was only here, after meeting some Chileans, Mexicans, Argentinians, and Bolivians, that I became aware of our ridiculous “main character syndrome” towards our brothers and sisters. I witnessed the most embarrassing moment when a Brazilian classmate said, in front of the whole Latino class, that “only Brazilian food is real food, because it has rice and beans”, even citing “Chinese food and Mexican food” as “not real food”. Chinese food has rice and Mexican food has rice and beans.

If that was not clear enough, I am not saying one country is better or worse than another. Actually, if you read this the right way, you have probably guessed that none of them feels “the right place” to me. I think that “right place” does not even exist, to be honest. Hate those people who list one hundred minorities to gather pity, but frankly speaking, as a POC neurodivergent overweight woman (won’t say bisexual because I’m in a hetero relationship that gives me a certain amount of privilege), in the ripe year of 2026… I would love to live in East Asia, but as a woman wearing the Western XL (it’s not even plus size, imagine if it were), seeing all those Western M women being treated as obese there makes me want to unalive myself.

After that brutally honest rant, I promise the next post will be more positive haha. It’s just that I have always had the habit of speaking my mind on the countless blogs I have had. This one has been different, though. I managed to get views and comments, which has never happened before, and this is great!!!!!! I love and appreciate every single one of you who take the time to read and comment on my silly stuff. But that also made me a bit self-conscious about the things I post… I don’t want to sound negative or unwelcoming to anyone. Part of that has to do with the younger audience I have attracted with my “cutesy aesthetics”. If that’s your first experience with the “indie web”, I don’t want to be the sad depressed bitch that kills your vibe. I promise I feel well, I am just a chronic overthinker haha.

Thank you again for everything. See you later!