“Improving the race”: Tropical Eugenics in Times of Nazi Triumph

The 1930s are usually seen as the moment when the celebration of mestizaje supplanted the eugenicist obsession with whitening in Latin America. The strengthening of nationalist political discourses and economic projects, the valorization of the nation’s workers, and the incorporation of cultural expressions of indigenous and African origin as officially recognized components of national identity are often cited as causes or expressions of this shift. But although the contrast between hegemonic approaches toward race in the region in the early- and mid-twentieth century is clear, this paradigm shift did not occur linearly or homogeneously. Rather than a succession of clearly delimited and mutually exclusive stages, what emerges from the sources is a tense coexistence of opposing visions and a complex combination of change and continuity. This chapter analyzes how the Nazis’s rise to power in Germany strengthened the arguments of the defenders of the “Aryanization” of the Brazilian population, such as Oliveira Viana, the most influential ideologue of the Vargas government. This transatlantic racist connection clashed with the publication of pioneering works by authors such as Gilberto Freyre and Arthur Ramos, which offered an innovative positive perspective on the African contribution to the formation of Brazilian culture.