Gringos versus Communists: a look at the Civil-Military Dictatorship in Brazil from the Casa do Estudante Universitário Aparício Cora de Almeida (1963-1981)

Abstract

Casa do Estudante Universitário Aparício Cora de Almeida (CEUACA), a college student residence halllocated in the city of Porto Alegre, was the first residence hall in the State of Rio Grande do Sul – Brazil. Ever since it was founded in 1934, the dormitory haskept its autonomy from any universities or colleges in the region, being administrated entirely by its occupants.  This article is a development of a more comprehensive study in the field of History of Education, which focuses on CEUACA and its hole as part of an «informal» educational system, which works far beyond University borders. In this paper, we focus on unveiling the effects of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964-1985), as well as the local repercussions of the events of May 1968in the dormitory students. We used an Oral History approach to capture the echoes of these events in the narratives of eight former occupants, who lived in the dormitory between 1963 and 1981. Through the narratives, it was possible to visualize the students’ relationship with popular organizations, as well as the circulation of books, journals and films. The results demonstrate the various ways found to signify the experiences lived by these students in the period and the ideological divisions that sometimes subvert the traditional binary repression/resistance.