The Accidental Traveller: Priscila Uppal’s Search for Her Fugitive Brazilian Mother

• Published in: Ilha do Desterro 2014-12 (67), p.103-114
• Main Author: Braz, Albert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autobiographies; brazil; canada; LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS; LITERATURE, AMERICAN; LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES; Poets; transcontinental crossings; travel; Travel literature; Writing
• ISSN: 0101-4846; 2175-8026; 2175-8026
• DOI: 10.5007/2175-8026.2014n67p103

No less important, as she stresses, "place is affected by our imaginative perceptions of our families." [...]her "Brazil, like a runaway mother, constantly changes, from exotic jungle to criminal haven to government town to a treasure trove of garbage" ("Brazil" 79), underscoring the strangeness of both the cultural and human geography she encounters. [...]Uppal cannot compensate for her lack of access to the outdoors in São Paulo by bonding indoors with her newly-discovered mother, since the two can barely tolerate each other. Part of Uppal's resentment toward her mother reflects her child-like dependence on her while in Brazil. Because of her lack of knowledge of Portuguese and her unfamiliarity with Brazilian culture, Uppal is utterly reliant on her mother. [...]one of the reasons she gives for loathing "the massive painting" that her mother hangs in her Brasília apartment of a partly naked woman and her two young children is that "the long-haired woman almost looks like me- large brown eyes, dark eyebrows, curly dark hair, high cheekbones, long nose" (182), whereas her "mother's skin is white, not brown" (183).