Breaking Barriers Project

The Breaking Barriers Project aims to combat xenophobia and stereotyping by exposure through writing submissions from victims.

[breakingbarriersproject]

“Sometimes I've heard strangers passionately use derogatory language to refer to me or something related to me. These personal attacks have ranged from my religious to my ethnic background.”

Anonymous, 16, Unknown

[breakingbarriersproject]

“I'm Brazilian, so people often ask me if I'm a monkey (I don't really understand the logic behind that but...), they also ask if Brazil is just a big forest full of animals and if I have wild pets, most people also think that I speak Spanish. Those are mostly harmless but the thing gets worse and worse. This situation happened both with me and my mother: a foreign guy, I think he was french, gave money to my mother and when she didn't understand he said that he was paying her to have sex with him, because he heard that that's what Brazilian women do. The exact same situation happened to me years later. I have been called a whore and a slut for being Brazilian, because apparently we are promiscuous. There was even a time that i hated Brazil and hated being Brazilian because of all the things that people have said to me, and I believed them. Gladly I'm not like that anymore The Olympics are currently in Brazil, and people have already thrown bananas on the field, they have made the nazi salute, they have made fun of our players, they have called us dumb.  I plan on moving to the UnitedStates because I want to be an actress (and acting is not really easy here, since we have very limited acting stuff) but I am very scared that people will treat me like that there, that I will not be able to follow my dream because of where I was born.”

Beatriz, 16, Brazil