ANAPOLA and EDUARDO MENDONҪA started BrasilFest in 1999 and have been its producers ever since. They have a company called Show Brazil, which also brings Brazilian music and performances of all types to the greater Seattle area.
Eduardo: “I found Seattle to be a place that embraces cultural diversity. I’ve stayed here for twenty-plus years and I still see this passion for the community to embrace cultural diversity growing. You can see Festál for example, we are growing, we are very serious about diversity, we are serious about working together, every single producer from all the individual festivals. They have been working very hard to make this place grow even more with cultural diversity. So that’s why I’m still here–why Seattle is my second home. Our son was born in Seattle, but he speaks Portuguese fluently. We tried a different way as a first immigrant generation by acknowledging his nationality as an American. We love this country. And as well we want him to keep the roots from his family. So he speaks Portuguese, he cooks Brazilian food, to keep the love of the culture and embrace it, but also to have a very strong sense of belonging in the place where he comes from.”
Anapola: “What’s the best part of BrasilFest? For me, it’s to see the kids who came to the Festival when they were little and now they’re all grown up and they participate, they volunteer for the festival. And also we see a lot of Americans that are interested in the culture, so we teach them a lot of things they don’t know.”
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