The ambition of being another’s desire: mixed-race people’s writings from a family from the suburban of Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACT This article seeks to challenge the narratives of the mestizo experience not only as a production of whitening but also as the staging of a stereotype. Both embodied in the experience of our family, reflecting tensions, modes, and projects of national identity. The romanticization of miscegenation, a place of production, foundation, and dissemination of the ever-dissatisfied desire to be another, marks the game of projections, simulations, and concealments of the narrative of our ancestry. As researchers, we seek to unravel some mysteries, fill in gaps, analyze the tensions of these stories that did not always tell the facts for what was said, but for the interdict, not said, ill-said. Knowing the process of formation and conformation of families, many times does not lead to knowing the process of formation and conformation of society, the country, and the world.