Recife

Tim beat me to it.

Anyway, after Brazil finally freed the slaves in the late 19th century, there was some concern on the part of the rich white Brazilians that they would "suffer" as a minority, so there was a campaign to convince Europeans to emigrate to Brazil in order to maintain the racial "balance" that the elite wanted. The biggest response came from Italy, and most of the Italians settled around São Paulo.

I believe there was also a wave of German immigration between the world wars.

Scatter

the croatian 'dominance' bit re: names is really only prevalent in the footballing community.

but yes, both sydney and melbourne both have a rather substantial number of croat (and slavic generally) ex-pats.

Gary Toner

I was in Brazil once many years ago and there was alot of Asians, Mostly Japanese/Korean. Not that surprising but the sheer numbers was immense to the naive like I was

batch

Think i read something on the BBC site not long ago that the Chinese are flocking to Brazil atm too

Recife

There are big Japanese communities in São Paulo and Paraná. I don't know about any Korean communities, though.

Helarxe

Brazil has more Lebanese-descended than Lebanon iirc.

davidbowie

Not so much a link as "a hell of a lot of various ethnicites/races/refugees have come to Australia".

After WW2 it was Italians, Greeks and other people displaced by the war, British have come here all through the years, Serbs and Croatians have come after all their troubles, same with the Vietnamese, Arabs (Lebanese, Iraqis and Assyrians mainly), and very recently Africans from the various wartorn areas.

If they come to Sydney, they will probably end up living in Western Sydney (where I live).

There is a huge ethnic population and they often end up in one suburb, like Vietnamese in Cabramatta, Lebs in Bankstown, Serbians in Bossley Park, and many Iraqi's in Fairfield (my surburb).

When Iraq won the Asian cup there was like 7,000 Iraqis celebrating in the street.

I think all the Croatian names are just because the rest of the immigrants not as many of them play football.

The africans have not been here long enough to make much impact, the Italians and Greeks are a much smaller group now, the Asians don't really care for sports in general.

maRIO

In the Rio Grande do Sul, from wiki:

'Rio Grande do Sul's population consists primarily of the descendants of European immigrants, especially Portuguese, Italians, and Germans and, to a much smaller extent, groups of Afro-Brazilians, Poles, Spanish, Russians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Jews. In the 1960s, a number of Japanese immigrants settled in various parts of the state, most notably in the town of Ivoti.'

Scatter

no, it's just that in the 60 odd years since people emigrated from those countries, they've actually 'fit in'. you know, like learning english etc. unlike the new lot who tend to think the best way to escape 'the horrors' of where it was they're fleeing, they decide the best idea is to set up a new mini-old-world in some bloody suburb of sydney/melbourne.

oh, and you live in fairfield? speak vietnamese or arabic much?

oooooooohhhh... when i was working fairfield, yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaars ago now, there was this FANTASTIC little kebab shop (yeah ok, one of hundreds in fairfield, but this one was AWESOME) on the corner of Ware Street. If it's still there (heh), lob a molotov cocktail through the door for me will ya - it's Fairfield, no one will notice ffs - as repayment for what the bastage did to my cholesterol count. :thup:

Splendid

no, it's just that in the 60 odd years since people emigrated from those countries, they've actually 'fit in'. you know, like learning english etc. unlike the new lot who tend to think the best way to escape 'the horrors' of where it was they're fleeing, they decide the best idea is to set up a new mini-old-world in some bloody suburb of sydney/melbourne.
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Tbh, turn of the century Italian immigrants to the US were very insular but were still absorbed into the cultural mainstream by the 50's