Ukrainian Brazilian

Ukrainian Brazilian

Ukrainians of Brazil (Portuguese: Ucraino-brasileiro, Ucraniano-brasileiro; Ukrainian: Українці Бразилії, Ukrayintsi Brazylii) are Brazilian citizens born in Ukraine, or Brazilians of Ukrainian descent who remain connected, in some degree, to Ukrainian culture. As of 1994, 400,000 people of Ukrainian descent lived in Brazil, 80% (or approximately 350,000) of whom lived in a compact region approximately 1,930 square miles (5,000 km2) in size (an area slightly larger than the US state of Rhode Island), in the hilly south central part of State of Paraná in southern Brazil. They refer to this region as "Brazilian Ukraine." Smaller numbers of Ukrainians have settled in São Paulo, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. The cities with the largest number of Ukrainians are Prudentópolis (approximately 38,000 Ukrainians, or 75% of the city's population), Curitiba (33,000 Ukrainians), and União da Vitória (approximately 26,400 Ukrainians or 50% of the city's population). In 2009 the Ukrainian population in Brazil was estimated to be 500,000 people.

Brazil has the third largest Ukrainian community in the Americas, and the third largest Ukrainian population outside of the former Soviet Union; only Canada and the United States have larger Ukrainian populations. In comparison to Ukrainians in North America, the Ukrainian community in Brazil (as well as in neighboring Argentina) tends to be more descended from earlier waves of immigration, is poorer, more rural, has less organizational strength, and is more focused on the Church as the center of cultural identity. Seventy percent of Brazil's Ukrainians live in agricultural communities known as "colonies" where they tend crops such as wheat, rye, buckwheat, rice, black beans, and erva mate, a local type of tea. These colonies are isolated from modern areas of Brazil's economy and from non-Ukrainians, and in many respects closely resemble Galician (Western Ukrainian) villages of the 19th century.