Directions: Respond to the following questions 1-5 as you watch the episode of “City of Men.”
Question #6 should be answered after watching the episode. This worksheet should be brought to discussion section on Friday. Please answer all questions, including question #6, directly on this worksheet.

1. In what ways is Rio presented as a city of contrasts?
Rio is the city with sewers and without sewers- asphalt and made out of dirt. There are wealthy parts and there are slumps.

2. What are the differences and similarities between Laranginha’s (Uólace’s) and João Victor’s home lives and families?
Differences: Victor made homemade meals and ate with his mother. Uolace ate pizza with his friends. Victor’s father showed up and wants to be his father. Uolace is mother is away for work and there were no food in the house. Uolace worries to find food. Uolace doesn’t even have milk, coffee, bread and butter in his house.
It’s ironic that Victor’s mom is scared of stray bullets when they live in a nice neighborhood. Victor’s mom is close to him and babied him (wanted to brush his hair). Victor wants a new pair of shoes. Victor complains about the foods that given to him.
School isn’t a big deal to Uolace. Uolace and his friend worked for their food. Victor just had to make it.
Same: both woke up to the sound of sirens. Both have been given a good name by their mothers so they can be important and have glorious future. They both wanted hamburger and dislike milk, coffee, bread. They ate the food given to them anyways. they both saw the commercial for shoes and wanted a pair. They both do not have a father figure growing up.
Uolace wished to have another tennis ball so he can juggle for 5 reals to buy a hamburger.
Victor was looking for a tennis ball so his mother wouldn’t have to pay for one.
They both think lowly of each other and “racist”
Both think that Duplex is going to rob Lucas’s tennis shoes.

3. What are Laranginha, Acerola, and Duplex’s assumptions as far as João Victor and Zé Luís are concerned and vice versa? How do race and class inform these stereotypes/assumptions?

(Notice, in particular, the scene that unfolds in the street in front of the snack bar and then later in front of the shoe store).
Street kids are dangerous/dirty .
Laranginha, Acerola, and Duplex assume that Victor and Luis are snotty playboys. They are stuck up because they can eat whatever they want. They have lots of hamburgers at home. (white trash, papa’s boy, fancy pants, fag, snotty)
Victor and Luis think street kids are dangerous. They assume that the kids held someone up and got money to buy a hamburger. (bag snatcher, petty thief), ignorant

The shoes store proved that Victor and Uolace both thought that the suspicious looking guys are bad guys. Uolace thought they were undercover cops. Victor thought they were thugs.

4. Do you notice examples of what you would consider race or class-based discrimination? If so, list them.
At the shoe store the clerk wasn’t as happy when she greeted Uolace. She showed him some cheaper priced shoes when he wanted a more expensive pair. When Victor walked in her demeanor changed.

5. What is it that Uólace and João Victor desire and struggle with? How do they see their futures?
Uolace and Joao Victor desire the tennis shoes. They struggle to find a way to buy it. Uolace’s future is unforeseen (streets, traffic, open air sewage, seeing world through cable tv). Joao Victor’s future he expects it to be good (health, doctors, school, surfing internet seeing the world)

The sneaker victor wanted will have to wait. Uolace thought the sneaker were nice but not worth a crime.

6. Our reading asserted that it is important to consider the connections between race, socioeconomic class and gender in order to understand the historical particularities of racial formations in Latin America. In contemporary Latin America, class and race continue to intersect with one another in important ways. Taking into consideration your responses to the above questions on “City of Men,” describe, in five to eight sentences, your impressions on the connections between race and class in Rio de Janeiro.
Racism is ingrained in the everyday life in Rio. It is internalized in Rio de Janeiro. Lighter skin has an advantage than darker skinned people. They are believed to have better chances of succeeding including greater job opportunities, glorious future, and a chance to have a better life/moving to a better neighborhood. Darker skinned is associated with lower class and troublemakers. The believed that all they do is steal from lighter skin folks and they don’t want to work hard. It is difficult for them to think of a better future when all they can think about is how to survive another meal. Darker skin have a harder time in life due to the exist racism.

Turn in next week.