BY GREGORY BEYER From the US to Brazil and Back Again · Capoeira Angola, Afro-Brazilian percus-sion and dance, and performed our final performance of the trip. In Bahia, additional

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encuentros

From July 3 to December 3, 2015, I had the pleasure of spending five months in Brazil, four of these thanks to

a grant from the Fulbright Scholar Program. That external funding allowed me to divide my time

evenly between teaching at the Federal Uni-versity of Minas Gerais (UFMG)1 and

researching the role of the berimbau musical bow in its traditional con-

text of the Afro-Brazilian mar-tial game known as Capoei-

ra Angola. I conducted research by read-

ing, studying recordings, making musical transcrip-tions and, most importantly, actively training at the Capoeira Angola Dobrada Association (ACAD). Such active participation – I learned how to be playful with my body, how to kick and be kicked, how to use my arms as legs, how to fall gracefully without injury, and much more- has opened up incredible opportuni-ties to learn from inside the community, through con-versations concerning the musical and philosophical aspects of the art form. No matter how much reading or listening I do on the subject, my understanding of Capoeira Angola would be impoverished without this critical participation.

My Fulbright period began in August of 2015. The month of July, however, was shared with a group of five talented percussion students from Northern Illinois University’s School of Music: Alexis Lamb, Christopher Mrofcza, Kyle Flens, Abigail Rehard, and Daniel East-wood. This trip would never have been possible without the generous support of many offices and people at NIU including: the Office of the Provost that approved my year-long sabbatical; the Division of International Pro-grams and its Lillian Cobb Faculty Travel Fellowship for International Teaching and Service; Richard Holly,

the former Dean of the College of Visual and Per-

From the US to Brazil and Back Again

BY GREGORY BEYER

2017 EDITION

SEE BRAZIL PAGE 2

Taking the Berimbau Full CirclePROFESSOR AND FIVE NIU STUDENTS PERFORM AND STUDY IN BRAZIL


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forming Arts; and the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies. With this collective support, we six musicians performed six concerts of “MeiaMeia,” a cycle of original music for tuned berimbaus co-composed by myself and undergraduate student, Alex-is Lamb.

The significance of performing this music in Brazil was paramount to the journey. The berimbau is Brazilian. It is an icon of African identity throughout that country. Through its association with Capoeira, it is the best-known and widely played musi-cal bow on this planet, and it is universally

known throughout Brazil. Because everyone for whom we performed or taught already knew the berimbau in a specific Brazilian manner, our presentations were instantly recognized and utterly shocking because our music was informed by a tradition that was markedly outside of the practice of

Capoeira music making. Our performances resulted in a series of life-changing experi-ences for everyone involved. This included myself, the students, and people in the com-munities for whom we offered our musical teaching and musical performances.

The travel took place in two distinct phases and in the two states, of Minas Gerais and Bahia. From July 4th through the 15th, we traveled through the state of Minas Gerais and performed five concerts in the cities of Mariana, Ouro Preto, Marinhos, Bru-madinho, and Belo Horizonte. On the days we were not traveling from city to city, we

based ourselves in the capital city of Belo Horizonte. My colleague, Dr. Fernando Rocha, is the Professor of Percussion at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and was of great help to me in the organization of these performances.2 In Belo Horizonte, the students and I participated in three Capoei-

ra Angola training sessions with Mestre Jurandir of the International Capoeira An-gola Foundation and two sessions with the person who would later become my pri-mary teacher and reference in the world of Capoeira Angola, Contramestra3 Alcione Oliveira of the group ACAD. In both loca-tions, in front of a group of capoeira prac-titioners, these teachers afforded us the opportunity to give short explanations and performances of our music. This was a won-derful stroke of luck and it was very success-ful because it generated an enthusiastic and large audience for our final performance in Belo Horizonte on July 14th.

In Minas Gerais, aside from performing and Capoeira training, additional profes-sional engagements included: a web inter-view with the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP) television station; a film clip of our performance for the UFOP se-ries, Concertos didaticas, (not yet available online); a workshop and masterclass for contemporary berimbau performance at the Artistic Education Foundation, and a workshop for young musicians in the for-mer quilombo or runaway-slave colony, of Marinhos. Additional memorable cultural activities included attending a percussion ensemble concert by the Federal Univer-sity of Minas Gerais Percussion Group, thereby creating an opportunity for NIU and UFMG students to interact, as well as our attendance at a traditional samba mu-sical performance that proved a safe envi-ronment for impromptu performances and dance alongside the many Brazilians gath-ered. We also visited the Municipal Park and Central Market of Belo Horizonte, the colonial era city of Ouro Preto, including a scenic train ride through mountainsides and waterfalls, and we explored the expan-sive garden and contemporary art campus of Inhotim.

BRAZIL FROM PAGE 1

SEE BRAZIL PAGE 3

“Your job with the berimbau…will be to discover what you can do with the instrument that tells who you are, what you are when you play berimbau.”


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BRAZIL FROM PAGE 2

SEE BRAZIL PAGE 4

The second phase, July 16th through July 26th, found us in the rustic, beauti-ful coastal village of Serra Grande in the state of Bahia. There we stayed at the Fa-zenda Cultural Ouro Verde (“Green Gold Culture Farm” a reference to both the Brazilian flag and to the inherent value of “green” or sustainable living). Ouro Verde is the home of my first berimbau teacher, Eldio Rolim, better known as Mestre Ca-bello Caobijubá. I first met Cabello in New York City in 1999, while I was doing doctoral work at the Manhattan School of Music. When the berimbau suddenly and magically entered my life, I sought out a good teacher and Cabello’s name came up repeatedly. His teachings were, in fact, ex-cellent and have stayed with me since that time. So much so that, sixteen years later, this trip is in no small way the direct re-sult of my initial contact with him. At the Barracão d’Angola community center that Mestre Cabello and his wife, Mestra Tizsa, have created, the students and I trained Capoeira Angola, Afro-Brazilian percus-sion and dance, and performed our final performance of the trip.

In Bahia, additional memorable activities included planting of over two hundred beriba seeds and saplings at Ouro Verde. This work, done over two days, was re-warding and educational. The little sap-lings will over the course of a few years become tall and slender trees that offer the perfect wood used for making the high-est quality berimbaus. What is incredible is that multiple slender trunks shoot from the same seed and when one is cut to make a berimbau, the other continues to grow unharmed and slowly but surely a new trunk grows in place of the cut one. With the proper handling and care, a beriba for-est is an endlessly renewable resource. We were also presented with the opportunity to construct our very own berimbaus from start to finish. This involved, multi-step, two-day process included: cutting beriba

trees, peeling the bark with a knife, shav-ing the wood with glass shards, sandpaper-ing the wood smooth, sawing then whit-tling the end to secure the wire, cutting open the gourd, sanding the gourd inside and at the mouth, nailing the leather into the top to support the wire, cutting open a tire bead, removing the wire, removing the excess rubber from the wire, knotting the wire loop and cutting cord to create both a tuning bridge for the gourd and a tying handle for the wire. (Please see on-line photos for images of a series of these steps.) We visited the Living Forest Insti-tute, just outside of Serra Grande. There we learned about the rich and precious ecosystem known as the Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) that surrounds much of southern coastal Bahia. It was fascinating to learn that this ecosystem, although very small, is just as rich in flora and fauna as the well-known Amazon rainforest in the north of the country.

In addition, we observed capoeira and drumming lessons for children between the ages of 5 and 12. Mestre Cabello has developed a very special way of teach-ing young people about self-confidence

through music and movement and this was a joy to behold. We worked at the Barracão d’Angola that included painting, construc-tion, weed removal, and much more as part of a large community effort to prepare the space for our final performance/party on the 26th. We also celebrated one of the student’s (Daniel Eastwood) birthday on July 21st with the community at the Bar-racão d’Angola. Daniel was presented with a homemade chocolate cake replete with candles at the end of an evening of Afro-Dance class. (Yes, he was made to do a solo dance number with cake in hand!)

I have created an online photo album http://www.arcomusical.com/blog/projeto-arcomusical-travel-to-brazil/ for the many experiences detailed above to give a richer, more complete sense of our experiences abroad. I should mention that in 1999, dur-ing my second berimbau lesson with Mestre Cabello, I performed for him and he smiled, then gave me the following challenge: “Your job with the berimbau…will be to discover what you can do with the instrument that tells who you are, what you are when you


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CLLAS RESEARCH AND TRAVEL AWARDS

SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS2014-2017

Graduate Student ResearchStephen Jankiewicz – Indigenous Gold from St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands: The Role of Metals in the Ancient Lesser Antilles

Jessica Ritsche – Do Folivores De-plete Patches? Feeding Behavior in Costa Rican Mantled Howlers

Margaret Buehler – Intersexual So-cial Interaction Relative to Female Reproductive Status and Male Dominance in Cebus capucinus

CLLAS Scholarship Fall 2014Shareny Mota

CLLAS Scholarship Spring 2014Nickolas ArrendondoRoxana MoragaTyler FeeneyJorge EscuderoIvonne UquillasElaine Rodriguez

CLLAS Scholarship Fall 2015Elizabeth Garcia

Robert Marcelin Scholarship 2014Sandra Gonzalez

Robert Marcelin Scholarship 2015Lizbeth Roman

Robert Marcelin Scholarship 2016Guillermo Benitez

Robert Marcelin Scholarship 2017Alejandra Macias

play berimbau.” Sixteen years later, I am delighted to report that, Northern Illinois University (NIU) has afforded me the cre-ative environment to develop something as unique with the berimbau that I can share with my students. Challenging them to learn, develop, and grow musically has aided my own growth in remarkable ways. Especially notable is my work with Alexis Lamb, the result of which is an album of this music, MeiaMeia, that will be released

in mid-2016 on Innova Recordings, a Min-neapolis-based contemporary music label with worldwide renown. Indeed, through these myriad musical and teaching experi-ences at NIU, as well as the generous sup-port from around the campus, I was able to respond to Mestre Cabello’s challenge in the most meaningful ways by sharing it di-rectly with him, with his community in Ba-hia, with a series of communities in Minas Gerais, and with five excellent young musi-cians from NIU.

NOTES

1 The acronyms used always represent the Portuguese name equivalents for each organization.

2 During my Fulbright Scholar period in Belo Horizonte immediately following this travel, I myself taught in Rocha’s stead at UFMG, directing the percussion ensemble and offering a special symposium on the berimbau.

3 In the hierarchy of Capoeira Angola, you are either a practitioner (no title is designated for people who simply study, a treinel (trainer), a contramestre (under-master), or mestre (master). The feminine form of the latter two simply substitutes an “a” for the final “e.” Mestre becomes Mestra. The relationship to one’s teacher (mestre) is critically important in the eyes of the community. Only Mestres of a particular organization can offer an official title to a member of the group, and the process of becoming a mestre can take decades, if it happens at all.


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CLLAS EVENTS 2016-2017

INTERNATIONAL AREA STUDIES OPEN HOUSEAugust 25, 2016

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: WHAT TO DO WHEN FACED WITH ANTI-MUSLIM DISCRIMINATION?February 22, 2017Attorney Bharathi Pillai, ACLU of Illinois

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: WITH POLICEMarch 1, 2017Dr. Kirk Miller, Chair of Sociology, NIU

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTSMarch 8, 2017Omar A. Salguero, Immigration Lawyer

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: WITH SEXUAL ASSAULT AND SEXUAL HARASSMENTMarch 22, 2017Dr. Kristen Myers, DirectorCenter for the Study of Women, Gender & Sexuality,

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: IN AN AGE OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS March 29, 2017Dr. Gena Flynn, DirectorCenter for Black Studies

Know Your Rights Series , Sponsored by: Center for Latino & Latin American Studies, Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Department of Sociology, Center for Black Studies, and Office of Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

What is the responsibility of the state to-ward its citizens? What types of goods and services should it invest in to promote eco-nomic and social development of its com-munities? What happens when the state takes on responsibility to ensure clean water, orderly streets, secure nights, and pure food, but then fails to fulfill this re-sponsibility or invests in services for some but not all? These are the questions I ask in my forthcoming book from the University of Chicago Press on municipal finance in Brazil’s first century of independence from Portugal. When Brazil declared indepen-dence in 1822, its new leaders decided that the responsibility for providing most pub-lic services rested at the municipal level. So I studied how municipalities organized and prioritized the provision of public services, who paid for them, and what happened when revenues fell short. Just as American cities faced difficult cost-cutting measures during the Great Recession, resulting in bankruptcies in Stockton and Detroit and lead-poisoned water in Flint, so too did Brazilian municipalities have to balance the need for a new public water fountain or urgent repairs to a failing bridge against modest revenues. The struggle to balance the books became especially acute when a public health crisis like an outbreak of small pox or yellow fever overwhelmed municipal finances. What happened then? My research looks at the sources and uses of municipal revenues over a 100-year pe-riod to understand how mayors and city councils answered that question. Their pri-orities in good times and in bad tells us a great deal about Brazilian attitudes toward socioeconomic development.

On one level, my research is a study of how a new nation arranged its public financ-es—whom to tax, what to tax, and what to spend the revenues on. On a deeper level, however, it is a history of Brazilian inequal-ity. Next to direct sources of family income, services like physical infrastructure, public safety, clean water, closed sewers, public health care, hygiene, and education con-stitute the greatest determinants of welfare in modern societies. Research by sociolo-gist Sam Adamo found that inadequate or unevenly distributed public services in the twentieth century promoted a “cycle of cu-mulative disadvantage” whereby poverty, crime, malnutrition, disease, and illiteracy broadened the gap between rich and poor across generations of Brazilians. This cycle has produced one of the worst wealth gaps in the modern world. In my new book I argue that the roots of inadequate public services date back to Brazil’s independence in 1822. The Brazilian state decided in 1828 that these services would be the responsibil-ity of the municipality, yet national leaders provided very little in the way of municipal revenue sources to pay for those services. This mismatch between responsibilities and revenues all but ensured that investment in public services would be inadequate to meet the needs of the Brazilian population.

This project came out of an accidental dis-covery in an archive in Campinas, a pros-perous city in the state of São Paulo that once was its economic and cultural center and is today home to the prestigious univer-sity, UNICAMP. My first book had studied

The Public Good and the Brazilian State:MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND THE PROVISION OF PUBLIC SERVICES, 1834-1930

SEE PUBLIC GOOD PAGE 6

BY ANNE HANLEY


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CLLAS EVENTS 2016-2017

COMING OUT OF THE SHADOWS March 29, 2017Coming Out of the Shadows is an act of resistance against rhetoric that discredits the narratives of undocumented immigrants. Undocumented students share their personal stories with the NIU community.

NIU LATIN JAZZApril 12, 2017 School of Music Concert Hall

PH.D. CANDIDATE IN HISTORY MATT MALETZ April 13, 2017 Representing Revolutionary Campesino Politics In Guatemala’s 1950 Huelga de Dolores

GRADUATE COLLOQUIUM SPEAKERApril 24, 2017 Ken Hirth, Professor of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, Merchants, Markets and Commerce in the Aztec World

April 25, 2017Ken Hirth, Professor of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, Obsidian Craft Production at Teotihuacan, Mexico.

HALMONI: ASIAN AMERICANS IN THE UNDOCUMENTED MOVEMENT May 3, 2017Sponsored by: Dream Action NIU, the Ladies of Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, Inc. Zeta Upsilon Chapter, the Gentlemen of Kappa Pi Beta Fraternity Inc., The Asian American Resource Center, and The Center for Latino & Latin American Studies.

financial institutions like banks and stock markets for their role in Brazilian economic development in the nineteenth-century. I was more interested in urbanization and in-dustrialization than in municipal finance at the time, but I noticed that municipalities increasingly traded their bonds on the stock market around the turn of twentieth centu-ry. I later discovered, by coming across the original text of a bond authorization in the UNICAMP archives, that these bonds were used to pay for urban improvements like physical infrastructure and modern water and sewer systems. By World War I, half of São Paulo’s municipalities had issued such bonds. It made me wonder about how mu-nicipal finance fit into the history of Brazil’s economic development. Recalling Sam Ad-amo’s article on the cycle of cumulative dis-advantage, I began investigating the sources and uses of municipal finance. This project is the result.

My research is set in the municipalities of the coffee producing zone in the state of São Paulo, the most dynamic economic region of Brazil by the late nineteenth century. This area was relatively poor before the coffee boom of the 1880s. Its residents grew some sugar and cotton for international con-sumption, but most were primarily engaged in animal husbandry, leather production, and the cultivation of rice and beans, corn and cotton, and manioc for domestic mar-kets. The arrival of the railroads beginning in the 1870s changed all that. Rails connect-ed this hinterland to the port, sparking a surge of new export-oriented economic ac-tivity. Coffee, grown for export and carried on pack mules to the port, spread through-out the interior now that transportation was assured. Rails carried immigrants into the hinterland to supplement a dwindling slave population in the coffee fields. Coffee flowed out to satisfy international demand. The resulting wealth paid for an expanded and diversified domestic economy, making

these municipalities among the largest and richest in the state. My working hypothesis was this: If anyone had the economic base to tax in order to pay for public services, it was São Paulo’s coffee-producing munici-palities. Their wealth, combined with the population boom that created demand for expanded services, provides a best-case understanding of the potential for Brazil’s municipal authorities to invest in public services in the first century as an indepen-dent country.

I needed to answer four basic questions in order to understand how municipali-ties had the potential to contribute to so-cioeconomic development: What services were municipal governments supposed to provide? What were their sources of funds to pay for those services? What did mu-nicipalities spend their money on? Were revenues sufficient to meet the needs of the community? To answer these questions, I examined Brazilian constitutions, national and state laws and codes focused on health and education, annual mayor’s reports and financial statements, municipal council minutes, municipal codes of ordinance, cit-izen complaints and petitions, correspon-dence between municipal and provincial/state authorities, statistical yearbooks, and newspaper reports. This is what I learned:

1. WHAT SERVICES WERE MUNICI-PAL GOVERNMENTS SUPPOSED TO PROVIDE?

The municipal council’s extensive respon-sibilities were outlined in an 1828 law that remained in effect up to the Great Depres-sion. It was required to draft ordinances to govern street construction, alignment, cleaning, illumination, and repair; con-struct and maintain public jails, sidewalks, bridges, fountains, aqueducts, water springs


PUBLIC GOOD FROM PAGE 5


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and reservoirs, and “any other construc-tions… for the decorum and ornament of the settlements;” establish cemeteries, drain wetlands, and otherwise attend to the hy-giene and health of the settlement; protect the settlement from wandering crazy folk, drunks, and ferocious animals; maintain peace and quiet and protect against of-fenses to public morals; establish public slaughterhouses and marketplaces to pro-tect the food supply; calibrate weights and measures; protect travelers; and authorize public entertainment spectacles. The Coun-cil was required to promote economic de-velopment by acquiring models of the latest agricultural machinery, “new useful ani-mals or the best of the existing races,” and seeds and cuttings of plants and fruit trees as if it was an agricultural extension station. Municipal councils had to establish charity houses for foundlings, provide health care to the poor, and vaccinate children. The peace, security and comfort of the town was their responsibility, and councilmen were encouraged to deliberate on the cleanliness, security, elegance, and style of the settle-ment as it expanded. These many respon-sibilities remained in place for more than a century, and expanded as new public goods like telegraph and telephone networks and firefighting brigades became commonplace.

2. WHAT WERE THEIR SOURCES OF FUNDS TO PAY FOR THOSE SERVICES?

Brazil did not tax wealth or income before the twentieth century, establishing instead a century-long practice of relying on indirect taxes. Indirect taxes are the easiest sources of public finance because they are transac-tional, meaning they are wrapped into the daily acts of exchange and therefore are absorbed into prices and less apparent to their contributors. Revenues at all levels of government were generated through indi-

rect taxes on the circulation of goods and services and on wealth transfers, but some revenue streams were more valuable than others. The national government captured the most lucrative revenue streams for itself, primarily taxes on imports. The state gov-ernments were financed through taxes on interstate commerce and wealth transfers, such as the sale of slaves before abolition (1888) and the sale or inheritance of prop-erty. Brazilian municipalities could only tax people, goods, and services that were not already taxed by the national or state governments. In practice, this meant that municipal finances were generated through local sales taxes, professional and business licenses, inspection fees, and fines for mis-deeds or illegal behaviors. The very mod-est revenue streams allocated to municipal governments amounted to less than 5% of all public revenues at the end of the 1800s. States were somewhat better off; their rev-enues accounted for about 20% of public funds. It was the national government that was the best endowed, collecting three-quarters of all public funds. The structure of public finances, then, allocated the few-est resources to the municipalities even as these governments were responsible for providing most public services. This situa-tion was unchanged over time. The only ex-ception was that municipalities, once pro-hibited from borrowing money to pay their bills, received the legal right to issue bonds after 1890.

3. WHAT DID THEY SPEND THEIR MONEY ON?

The most important uses of municipal public finance were major public works, followed by public health, then safety and education. This makes sense when we think about what is needed to found and develop a settlement: lay out the streets, dig the gut-ters, and provide the jail, meeting house and

church. Add in public fountains. Drain the wetlands. Build municipal slaughterhouses and markets. Pave the streets, build the sidewalks, and install lighting. As popula-tion grew, outsiders moved in, settlements grew denser, and public health concerns grew. Municipalities invested in hospitals, vaccination campaigns, clean water, closed sewers, and trash removal. By the turn of the twentieth century, these coffee-region mu-nicipalities were established and increasing-ly prosperous, so cultural concerns began to enter into spending plans. Budgets began to allocate some funds to beautify public spaces, install botanical gardens, make dec-orative paths and sidewalks, provide a band shell for Sunday concerts, invest in schools, and build a municipal theater. What about in times of crisis? When economic reces-sion set in or an outbreak of small pox or yellow fever struck, municipal authorities ordered a stop to all routine public works, discontinued paying public salaries, and diverted funds to pay for hospitals, nurses, vaccines, contractors. Some municipalities were constantly in arrears.

4. WERE REVENUES SUFFICIENT TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE COMMUNITY?

The most important and difficult question to answer was whether the level of invest-ment in public services met the needs of the population. How much was enough? Did low levels of investment in one service or another indicate indifference on the part of local leaders or poverty of the municipal treasury? The evidence strongly suggests that municipal poverty constrained invest-ment in public services. Municipal financial statements recorded more deficits than pos-itive balances across the years, and munici-pal administrators made repeated appeals




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to the state legislator for subventions—spe-cial funds beyond the budgeted amounts—to make ends meet. It wasn’t just the num-ber of appeals, hundreds upon hundreds over the years; it was the size of the appeals. These requests for money to put a roof on the municipal jail, repair a bridge critical to local commerce, or to build a new water fountain to keep up with the swelling popu-lation were orders of magnitude greater than the total annual revenues from mu-nicipal taxes, fees, and fines. It was impos-sible to pay for them without some outside source of funds. More importantly, these subvention requests often went unheeded, were subject to years-long delays, or were only partially subsidized. The requests were not part of an institutionalized plan that had the built-in feature of routine intergov-ernmental transfers. They represented real funding shortfalls.

When municipalities gained the right to borrow money in 1890 to supplement these meager revenue sources, they borrowed im-mediately and enthusiastically to cover the shortfall. Public spending on infrastructure and services boomed almost literally over-night, primarily to invest in hygienic im-provements like modern water and sewer systems, and public safety goods like elec-tric street lighting. Debt service—the inter-est owed on those loans—exceeded the legal limit in many instances, as administrators turned to debt beyond what they were al-lowed to supplement revenues. Yet the abil-

ity to borrow was predicated on the value of the local economy, and the value of the local economy was what generated the taxes, fees, and fines that produced normal revenues. The poorer the municipality was, the great-er its need to supplement revenues with borrowing, yet the lower its capacity was to borrow. The inability to finance investments through ordinary revenues or loans meant underinvestment in the infrastructure that supported economic exchange, like paved roads and secure bridges, or services that attracted and maintained a population to live, work, and trade in the local economy, like health, safety, and education.

In short, municipalities were caught in a feedback loop that constrained their abil-ity to fulfill their mandate. In spite of being situated in the wealthiest region of Brazil and producing most of the coffee consumed globally, these municipalities could only generate revenues from the effect of the cof-fee boom on local economic activity—the growth of business activity in their commu-nities. Municipal revenues per capita varied greatly from place to place, which meant that their capacity to invest in economic and social development varied widely as well. Research by other scholars has shown that the variations in investment in one public good, education, had long term and persistent effects on Brazil’s socioeconomic development. São Paulo municipalities that invested more in education at the beginning of the twentieth century, for instance, regis-

tered higher test scores and incomes at the end of the century than those who invested less or not at all.

CONCLUSION

The historical record shows that munici-pal administrators made concerted and repeated efforts to provide basic public goods to the municipality, but that munici-pal revenues were insufficient to deliver on the municipal mandate. In spite of the very far reaching and specific responsibilities established for municipal councils in the early years of independence, the structure of public finance that concentrated most revenues in the national government meant underfunding local government, the place where the major responsibility for provision of public services was located. It isn’t as if there was no solution to this problem. Bra-zilians could have chosen to tax wealth or income on the coffee sector to generate the revenues needed to provide. Yet at no time were taxes on the wealth or income of coffee producers considered. Instead, they rested on indirect taxes and borrowing. Municipal authorities struggled to fulfill their man-date and, as a result, were limited in their potential to invest in social and economic development. The structure of the Brazilian fiscal system in the first century of indepen-dence contributed to underdevelopment at the municipal level.

NOTES

Sam Adamo, “Race and Povo” in Modern Brazil: Elites and Masses in Historical Perspective edited by Michael L. Conniff and Frank D. McCann. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.

Brazil. Coleção de Leis e Decretos, Law of 1 October 1828

Carvalho Filho, Irineu and Renato P. Colistete. “Education Performance: Was It All Determined 100 Years Ago? Evidence from São Paulo, Brazil” Paper presented to the Economic History Association 70th Annual Meeting, 2010.



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DR. GREGORY BEYERAssociate Professor, Music Director of Percussion Studies

ALBUM RELEASESProjeto Arcomusical. MeiaMeia - New Music for Berimbau. Innova Records, 922. October, 2016.

ALBUM REVIEWSMolloy, Maggie. MeiaMeia from Ar-comusical. http://secondinversion.org/2016/12/05/album-review-meiame-ia-from-arcomusical. December, 2016.

da Gama, Raul. Projeto Arcomusical Presents: Meia Meia. World Music Report.https://worldmusicreport.com/reviews/cds/projeto-arcomusical-meia-meia. May, 2017.

Robinson, N. Scott. “MeiaMeia: New Music for Berimbau. Percussive Notes (55: 2) p. 74.http://www.arcomusical.com/wp-con-tent/uploads/2017/06/Percussive-Notes-May-2017-MeiaMeia-Review-p74-1.pdf. May, 2017

MEDIA APPEARANCESNPR - Weekend Edition Sunday. “Unrav-eling The Berimbau, A Simple Instrument With A Trove Of Hidden Talents.” http://www.npr.org/2017/01/22/510612160/un-raveling-the-berimbau-a-simple-instru-ment-with-a-trove-of-hidden-talents. January, 2017.

PRESENTATIONSBeyer, Gregory. “Creating a New Reper-toire for Musical Bows”. Invited perfor-mance and research presentation. I Bra-zilian Percussion Conference. Campinas, Brazil. May, 2017.

PERFORMANCES“Scratch Data” by Raphael Cendo. Solo performance. Focus Day. Percussive Arts Society International Convention. India-napolis, IN. November, 2016.

Third Coast Percussion. “Le Noir de l’étoile” by Gerard Grisey. Sextet perfor-mance. Focus Day. PASIC. Indianapolis, IN. November, 2016.

Dal Niente Presents Gregory Beyer. Solo recital. Constellation, Chicago, IL. May, 2017.

Arcomusical Brasil. Artistic Education Foundation. Recital. Belo Horizonte, Bra-zil. May, 2017.

Projeto Arcomusical. Savvy Chamber Competition. Finalists. Columbia, SC. June, 2017.

RODRIGO VILLANUEVA CONROYAssociate Professor, Music

PUBLICATIONS (CD RECORDINGS)NIU Jazz Ensemble, directed by Rodrigo

Villanueva, “Footprints.”Director and Producer of the album.

NIU JAZZ STUDIES. “State of the Bari-tone.” Anders SvanoeDrummer in 11 tracks. 2017.

MAYRA C. DANIELProfessor, Department of Literacy and El-ementary EducationBilingual ESL Coordinator

PUBLICATIONS“Planning instruction for English learn-ers: Strategies Teachers Need to Know,” in Successful teaching: What Every Novice TeacherNneeds to Know, eds. J. Grinberg, D. Schwarzer, & M. Molino (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 89-106.

PRESENTATIONSCelebrating Past and Future Educational Achievements in Guatemala. Keynote presented at the XI International Literacy Conference. Antigua, Guatemala. 2017.

Cuba’s past and present: Examining English as the means to the survival of a culture. Presentation at the Illinois Association of Multilingual Multicultural Educators. Oak-brook, Illinois. December, 2016

Exploring new paths to academic literacy for English language learners. Sympo-sium at the Literacy Research Association Annual Conference. Nashville, Tennes-see. November, 2016.

ANNE HANLEYAssociate Professor, History

PUBLICATIONSRefereed journal articles:

Anne Hanley with Luciana Suarez Lopes. “Municipal Plenty, Municipal Poverty,

2016 FACULTY PUBLICATIONS AND ACTIVITIES


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and Brazilian Economic Development, 1836-1850”. Latin American Research Re-view, 52, no. 2 June, 2017.

Anne Hanley withWith Júlio Manuel Pires, Maurício Jorge Pinto de Souza, Re-nato Leite Marcondes, Rosane Nunes de Faria, and Sérgio Naruhiko Sakurai. “Cri-tiquing the Bank: 60 years of BNDES in the academy” Journal of Latin American Studies, 48, no. 4, 2016: 823-850.

PAPERS PRESENTED “The Metric System in National Law and Local Practice in Nineteenth-Century Brazil” Presented to the Conference on Latin American History, Denver, Colo-rado, January 6, 2017.

Panel organizer and participant. “Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, and the Norms of Economic Exchange in 19th Century Latin America.” Conference on Latin American History, Denver, Colorado, January 6, 2017.

“The economics of everyday life in nine-teenth-century Brazil” Presented to the XIII Congress of the Brazilian Studies As-sociation, Providence, Rhode Island, April 1, 2016.

PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS 2017 National Endowment for the Hu-manities Summer Stipend

2017 Student Engagement Fund Grant, Of-fice of Student Engagement and Experiential Learning (OSEEL), Northern Illinois Uni-versity for “The Carat Empires: Gemstones and Mining in Brazil,” Tyechia Price, under-graduate research apprentice, spring 2017

2016 Great Journeys Research Assis-tantship Program Award, the Graduate School, Northern Illinois University for “1872: Standardizing the Brazilian Na-tion.” History Ph.D. candidate Journey Steward, research assistant.

2016 Student Engagement Fund Grant, Office of Student Engagement and Expe-riential Learning, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Northern Illinois Univer-sity for “What Counts? The History of Weights and Measures.” Rachel Jacob, re-search apprentice.

BEATRIX HOFFMANAssociate Professor, History

PRESENTATIONS“Nurses, Immigrants, and the Right to Health Care,” Keynote address at the an-nual meeting of the American Association for the History of Nursing. My research for the talk was assisted by NIU student Betsania Salgado, who is studying the role of nurses in immigrant health care as part of her Student Engagement Fund project.

“From La Huelga to La Clinica: The Fight for Health Care for U.S. Farmworkers.” Paper presentation at the American Association for the History of Medicine Conference.

Taught a class on Latino Legal History, in which we learned about topics rang-ing from law in early Spanish California to voting rights, refugee policies, and Trump’s executive orders.

KRISTIN HUFFINE Acting Director Center for Latino and Latin American Studies / Associate Professor, History

PUBLICATIONS“Thinking at the Margins: Subalterns and the Spanish American Past,” Imagining Histories of Colonial Latin America: Essays on Synop-tic Methods and Practices. Karen Melvin and Sylvia Sellers-Garcia, editors, in produc-tion with the University of New Mexico.

PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS 2016 Summer Research Opportunity Grant, Office of Student Engagement and Experi-

ential Learning, Northern Illinois University for NIU Latino Oral History Project. Laura Vivaldo-Cholula, Research Apprentice.

2016 Summer Research Opportunity Grant, Office of Student Engagement and Experiential Learning, Northern Illinois University for NIU Latino Oral History Project. Nick Casas, Research Apprentice

2016 Summer Research Opportunity Grant, Office of Student Engagement and Experiential Learning, Northern Illinois University for NIU Latino Oral History Project. Nick Casas, Research Apprentice.

2016 Summer Research Opportunity Grant, Office of Student Engagement and Experi-ential Learning, Northern Illinois Univer-sity for NIU Latino Oral History Project. Alfredo Cervantes, Research Apprentice.

JORGE JERIA PH.D.Professor, Adult & Higher Education

PRESENTATIONS“El Reconocimiento, la validacion y la acreditacion de los aprendizajes previos en un contexto global: Evaluacion o apre-ndizaje. Facultad de Educacion y Trabajo Social”. Conference Universidad de Vall-adolid, Espana, November 7, 2016.

“Bases para la acreditacion y validacion de saberes como politica publicas en America Latina”. UNESCO Mid Term CONFIN-TEA meeting. Brasilia, Brazil May, 2016

“Educacion de adultos y politicas publicas en paises del cono sur Facultad de Edu-cacion.” Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. May, 2016

“Recognition, Validation, and Accredita-tion (RVA) State of the art programs in selected countries of Latin America.” Pre-sentation UNESCO, Institute of Lifelong Learning Hamburg, Germany, August 22 to 26, 2016.


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JENNIFER KIRKER-PRIESTDirector, James B. and Rosalyn L Pick Mu-seum of Anthropology

CURATION Curated exhibition on Guatemalan mi-gration, open January –May, 2017

PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS“Ceramic Chronology and Population History at Piedras Negras, Guatemala,” presented at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies annual research conference, October, 2016.

“Animating Student Activism: Moral Im-perative for University Museum,” pre-sented at the Annual Meetings of the So-ciety for Applied Anthropology in Santa Fe, New Mexico, March, 2017.

BOOK REVIEW“The Return of Curiosity: What Museums are Good For in the 21st Century.” Museum Anthropology Review 11(1). Spring 2017.

PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS 2015-16 Great Journeys Research Assis-tantship Program Award, the Graduate School, Northern Illinois University for “1872: Standardizing the Brazilian Na-tion.” History Ph.D. candidate Journey Steward, research assistant.

2015-16 Student Engagement Fund Grant, Office of Student Engagement and Experiential Learning, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Northern Illinois Uni-versity for “What Counts? The History of Weights and Measures.” Rachel Jacob, re-search apprentice.

KATHY LADELLUniversity Libraries

PUBLICATIONSMcGowan, B., Ladell, K. “Spanish lan-guage children’s books focusing on health

literacy: an annotated bibliography”, 2017, Public Library Quarterly, 36:1, 77-93.

LEILA PORTER Associate Professor, Anthropology

PRESENTATIONS“Ecología y Conservación de los Primates en Bolivia” May 21st -June 3rd, 2017. Universidad Mayor San Andres and the Zoológico Vesti Pakos Sofro in La Paz, Bo-livia. The class was organized by the Colec-ción Boliviana de Fauna, and was funded by a grant received from the Primate Action Fund (part of the Margot Marsh Biodiver-sity Fund and Conservatio International).

PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS Endangered Species Fund of the Chicago Board of Trade - Chicago Zoological Soci-ety, and the Conservation Fund of the In-ternational Primatological Society grants. Leila is working with Peruvian and Ecua-dorian colleagues on this research as well as geneticists at the University of Texas and the University of Michigan.

PUBLICATIONSLeila Porter and Dr. Wendy Erb, “The lit-tlest helpers: what we know (and don’t know) about cooperative infant care in

callitrichine primates”, Evolutionary An-thropology, (2017) [26 (1):25-37].

FRANCISCO SOLARESAssociate Professor, Foreign Languages and Literature: Spanish

PUBLICATIONS“Retrato” Conjuro y concilio, November 2017, published by the Universidad de Guanajuato, México, and edited by Moisés Elías Flores.

PRESENTATIONS“Los textos comunicantes y la respuesta cultural hispanoamericana” April 29-May 2, 2017, 37th International Congress of LASA in Lima, Perú.

SIMON E. WEFFER Associate Professor, Sociology

PUBLICATIONS“Are the Truly Disadvantaged De-Mobi-lized: Social Isolation and Protest in Chi-cago, 1970-1990.” Critical Sociology Vol 43, Issue 2, (2017), 267 - 289.

PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS Elected to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois executive board. Elected to the NIU Presidential Commission on the Status Minorities

ROBERT MARCELIN MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP

Guillermo Benitez and Alison Thomson

Center for Latino and Latin American Studies

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Documents

BY GREGORY BEYER From the US to Brazil and Back Again · Capoeira Angola, Afro-Brazilian percus-sion and dance, and performed our final performance of the trip. In Bahia, additional