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The event is celebrating
its 25th anniversary, with the Cleansing of 46th Street
on Saturday September 5, and Brazilian Day on Sunday,
September 6, at 46th Street, also known as Little Brazil, and
6th Avenue, near Times Square. Presently the event takes over
25 blocks surrounding Little Brazil.
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The festival began to celebrate Brazil's Independence Day. Since
1984, that small celebration has only grown, up to the point of
attracting over1.5 million people in 2008, according to official
information from NYPD.
People come from as close as Connecticut and as far as California.
Perfectly bonding with the diverse population of New York City,
people also come from Europe, Asia and Africa, to join the
festivities. Some travel in groups, by bus, some fly in, and
others simply drive hundreds of miles. No one wants to be left out
of this party, which is now considered the world's biggest
Brazilian event outside Brazil and one of the Big Apple's greatest
ethnic events.
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The organizers of Brazilian Day, The
Brasilians Newspaper, The Brazilian-American Cultural
Center (BACC) and TV Globo Internacional, are
expecting a record number of participants for the 25th
celebration.
There are no precise estimates of how many Brazilians live
nowadays in the United States. However, the Brazil
Information Center (BIC), a non-profit poll organization
based out of Washington, D.C., estimates that there are over
a million Brazilians throughout the entire country. Of
those, 300 thousand live in the three-state area of New
York, Connecticut and New Jersey. The NGO also estimates
that 100 thousand alone live in the Queens area, in New
York. |
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In this way, the Brazilian Day festival is
not simply a party celebration; it has become an opportunity
to reach out for the Brazilian community in the United
States. On that day, Brazilians join each other from
different parts of the world, many coming from Brazil just
to attend the festival, show their pride, advertise their
culture, and live their nostalgic and anonymous feeling of
being an immigrant away from home.
Furthermore, they consolidate their presence
in the United States bringing the Brazilian popular warmth, rich
music heritage.
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