The Strangeness of Things

This thesis presents a series of short stories that focus on Brazilians and Brazilian-Americans struggling with similar themes of isolation and angst in and of an increasingly globalized world. Thus, in these stories, where identity is hybrid and largely determined by an irretrievable and longed-for past, Rio and America compete as backdrops; that is, Rio is the shadow through which I write about the cultural displacement and nostalgia individuals experience when they find out they don't know where "home" is. In exploring how an individual's identity and desire play out alongside the alienation and loneliness that comes with existing between two different worlds, I hope to convey that such struggles reflect what many of us, whether natives or immigrants in America or elsewhere have and will continue to experience in multicultural and globalized societies.