Domino Effect

Vanessa Almirante  

ESL 100

November 9, 2023

Domino Effect

Brazil is the biggest country - geographically and demographically - of Latin America. However, it is still very common for people around the world to not make the correct association between country and continent. Some researchers say that this occurs due the fact that Spanish is not the official language in the country, which isolates it from the rest of the continent. Despite this, the vast majority of territories in Latin America share a similar history background. Just like Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and others, Brazil also suffered decades with a military regime financed by the United States in the mid-20th century. In this way, the redemocratization was a hard process that culminated in the recovery of Brazil's sovereignty and freedom within the elaboration of the new 1988 Constitution. The consequences of this historical event positively influenced the lives of all Brazilians, and it was no different with the people in my family, who were able to give a better life to me and my sisters.

The 1988 Constitution guarantees social rights, such as education and health to all citizens. Due to this, the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) - Unified Health System - was created with the objective of offering quality free health care to everyone. As an effect, many job positions were opened in the health field, and due to this, my mother could get a good position as a dentist in a better and smaller city called Pojuca in the state of Bahia. This bucolic city was a perfect place for my mother to build her career and life because there she found a school with quality and free education, no violence in the streets and a perfect spot for her to start her own private clinic.

Furthermore, my parents also met in Pojuca. After a few months in the city, my mother was able to save some money from her job at SUS and finally accomplished a dream to open her own clinic. It was hard for her. Before she moved, she divorced her first husband, and had to take care of my two older sisters alone in a completely new city. Despite this, she made it, and it was in her clinic that she met my father as her patient. My father was born and raised in Pojuca, thus if my mother hadn’t moved, they would never have started a friendship that evolved to a romantic relationship.

The years that followed redemocratization slowly favored an improvement in the country's economy, which directly affected the Brazilians' lives including my mother’s. Working at SUS and having her own private clinic made her acquire a more stable financial life. Her purchasing power increased, and with that, she could afford to buy a house, improve her clinic, and give my sisters and me a more comfortable life. The changes were visible to every person that had experienced the transition between the dictatorship and the democracy. A happier country was rising. 

Therefore, the redemocratization changed my family’s life in a way that my mother could have a good job, meet my father and have a better purchasing power. Through the years, she always reminded my sisters and me about this past, and mostly how she achieved everything she has now. Just as in a domino effect, big events in history have the power to effectively change the directions of a society. In this case, it was responsible for my wellbeing and existence.