In Brazil race is looked at differently than in the United States. The main reason behind this is the unique mixture of races that took place during the colonization of Brazil. European, specifically Portuguese, and black races mixing through transculturation; which is a give and take exchange between cultures, that has a lot to do with the distinct view on race. The end result of the mixing is a nation that is almost entirely different than the rest of the countries in Latin America, which makes it hard to identify Brazilians in the United States. This leads to a lot of self-identification by Brazilians, and the different view of race in Brazil helps this self-identification.

An example of this different view on race is seen in Helen Marrow's article titled "To Be or Not To Be (Hispanic or Latino): Brazilian Racial and Ethnic Identity in the United States" when Marrow writes a quote by a woman named Christina who says, " In Brazil you are white even though you can descend from anything, you can almost be black but still white, you see? You only need to be a little bit light, and you are white." As you can see this the complete opposite of what is seen in the United States with the one drop rule. This rule explained by Shari L. Dworkin in her article titled "Race, Sexuality, and the One Drop Rule: More thoughts About Interracial Couples and Marriages" as "how U.S. courts and law books historically declared that a mixed race person with “one black ancestor” or “one drop of black blood” should be categorized/viewed/treated as black."  This means that even though there is more space to be labeled as white, and accept the many privileges that come associated with it.

This way of thinking changes the way that Brazilians identify themselves by in the United States. Brazilians that come to the United States that previously identified themselves as white in Brazil carry that label with them to the United States, because they see that it gives them an advantage by putting them higher in the social hierarchy ladder. Also, because they receive all the benefits that entail with the label of being white, which include opportunities that aren't available to them if they were to be identified as another race. This carrying over of  labels I explained by Marrow when she writes, " Brazilians immigrants in the USA are more likely to come from middle and upper-middle-class origin and there identify as white, than the general population in Brazil. Martes confirms that most adult Brazilian immigrants enter the USA thinking they are white." This quote is important because it shows that Brazilians who were better off in society and thought of themselves as white tend to carry this self-identification into the Unites States. Seeing how easy it is for somebody to identify as white it shows how different race identification is Brazil, and also how being identified as a race that is of a higher standing in society could change the way you get treated in the US.

http://helenmarrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Marrow_2003_Ethnicities.pdf

http://thesocietypages.org/sexuality/2009/10/18/race-sexuality-and-the-one-drop-rule-more-thoughts-about-interracial-couples-and-marriage/