What happens when someone who identifies as an all-American patriot sits down with a first-generation American who grew up in Brazil?
Central Florida Public Media and StoryCorps are bringing together strangers with differing political views for guided One Small Step conversations.
Jonah Scott, 21, said he’s “an American at heart,” a true patriot whose family roots trace back to the founding fathers. He said he holds traditional conservative values and wants what’s best for his country.
Across from him sat 20-year-old Jaydon Souza, a first-generation American who spent most of his life in Brazil. He said he likes to take a humanistic approach to politics and doesn’t fit neatly into the box of Republican or Democrat or American or Brazilian.
“They (Brazil) have a very big street dog problem there, and the most stereotypical dog is the caramel color, and they call it a Caramello, and I feel like that would be a better fitting for me, that I'm just like a mixture of a mutt, that I don't fit in either place,” Souza said. “But I do feel that down in my heart, I am towards the Brazilian side. I do believe that as I live in America for longer, that the American side will start to grow more into my heart.”
“What do you think about this idea that you'll feel more Brazilian around Americans, but you'll feel more American around Brazilian?” Scott said.
“100% I fully agree with that,” Souza said. “That's exactly how it is.”
“In a similar way, my father's Jewish and my mother's Catholic. When I talk about Christianity to people, I feel quite Jewish, when I'm with a lot of Jewish people and they're talking about Judaism, I feel a little bit like a Catholic,” Scott said. “So I do get that middle ground feeling. I sympathize with that.”
Meet Jonah Scott
Scott is a senior accounting major at the University of Central Florida. He currently serves as president of both the UCF College Republicans and the university’s chapter of Turning Point USA.
Originally from Boston, Scott moved to Florida with his family in 2010 during the Great Recession. He’s been passionate about politics and current events for as long as he can remember, getting involved in activism at just 12 years old.
Scott said he identifies strongly with his American roots, describing any other part of his background as irrelevant; he considers himself all-American.
For him, his most personal and vocal issue in politics today is immigration.
"It's about the movement of people, and there's a lot of sentiment on the pro-immigration side, especially in regards to H1B, visas,” Scott said. “They’re like, oh, Americans are not able to do these certain jobs, we must bring in people to replace you, and that is very personal. I'm an American, my children will be Americans, and I want this country to stay American.”
Scott said immigration is a major topic of debate because the U.S. has seen an unprecedented amount of legal immigration since the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, and to him, for a melting pot to work, there needs to be a level of immigration that allows people to assimilate.
He said he’s seeing more parallel communities rather than one united one.
“If immigration does not slow down, and perhaps it's already too late for this in the long run, the United States, in my belief, will be a conglomerate of different ethnicities who use the federal government to advocate for their own people over the interest of other people,” Scott said. “It's just that the country can no longer advocate for its own interests on the world stage or even domestically, because every group is fighting for themselves. I think that's by far the biggest fear.”
Meet Jaydon Souza
Souza was born in Orlando but moved to Brazil when he was 7 years old. His father had immigrated to the United States from Brazil without legal status, and Souza said he relocated to avoid any further complications for his family.
Years later, Souza’s family returned to the United States and has lived here for the past two years. Now, he works alongside his father in the construction industry, a job he said is relatively easy to find when you’re new to the country.
He said he works a lot with immigrants in his job, and when it comes to politics he doesn’t take sides.
“I take more of a humanistic approach,” Souza said. “Being around or living through third world conditions down in Brazil, you kind of get a sense of community and for working with individuals, so when I come here to America and I see major divisions between political parties, it's kind of hard for you to pick one and like, deny the other half.”
Like Scott, Souza said immigration is an important issue for him, but that’s also where their views begin to diverge.
“I think immigration, despite legal or illegal, they’re still humans trying to get by the day, trying to do the best that they can,” Souza said.
He said he doesn’t fully agree with illegal immigration, explaining that crossing the border should only happen in life-or-death situations. Otherwise, he believes people should follow the legal process.
“I feel for the people who have been here illegally for so many years, at a time, almost decades,” Souza said. “It feels like they are Americanized and they are part of this country and I don't like the idea of having to push them out just because they did something bad five to 10 years ago.”
The Takeaway
“What good, if any, do you sense comes from our differences?” Souza said.
“I think there's a lot of good that comes from differences when those differences are expressed with reason, because we can help shape each other's perception,” Scott said. “Maybe you don't even agree with what they said, but you do think about it, and you adjust your position just a bit.”
“I agree with that,” Souza said. “Our differences just show how much of a difference we have as we're growing up, and everything experienced in life, and it kind of just gives you a different perspective in life, there's nothing wrong about that.”
They switched to expectations and Souza asked, “Was I who you expected me to be?”
“Actually, no, I'm not being honest,” Scott said. “I suppose I'm just used to people being sort of unreasonable, for lack of a better term, you're able to articulate your opinions very well, it's been a very pleasant conversation, so I appreciate that.”
Scott flipped the question around to Souza.
“At the beginning, I feel like you were the person I was expecting,” Souza said. “As you explain more about yourself and your perspective, I feel like that kind of shifted the way I had imagined you, and you are in a way, different than what I had expected.”
