ChildrenposenexttoareplicaoftheStatueofLibertyinVilaKennedy

January 20, 1964

Igor B. Cardoso

Inaugurated on January 20, 1964, Vila Kennedy received a curious sculpture. Little is known about how one of the scale models made as a prototype for the production of the Statue of Liberty, by the French artist Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, ended up in Brazil. However, it is said that when Carlos Lacerda, governor of Guanabara, visited the gardens of the home of commendatore José Pereira da Rocha Paranhos, where the model was located, he had the idea of installing it in Vila Kennedy. The vila was one of four housing complexes – besides it, Vila Esperança, Vila Aliança, and Cidade de Deus – built with American funding to house around 42,000 favela residents evicted from their homes.

Named in honor of the president assassinated months before its inauguration, Vila Kennedy was the result of a financial loan program from the United States to Latin American countries, including Brazil. More than socioeconomic support, the Alliance for Progress was a typical political product of the Cold War: it aimed to curb the advance of communism on the American continent and, in Brazil's case, granted subsidies to states aligned with the North American bloc.

The housing program championed by Lacerda included the removal of favelas in central areas of what is now the city of Rio de Janeiro, such as Pasmado and Getúlio Vargas, and the relocation of these low-income populations to peripheral areas. Besides the distance from the urban center, the new residents complained about the segregation of families, the lack of infrastructure, such as public lighting, and the debt they incurred, since families were required to pay monthly fees to the Companhia de Habitação Popular do Estado da Guanabara. Those who did not have the minimum income ended up in screening areas, many of which became permanent housing, turning into favelas themselves, as is the case of Complexo da Maré.

These measures adopted by Lacerda were grounded in ideological principles, more than in technical studies aimed at solving the housing problem. Underlying it all was the idea that former favela residents could become owners of individual houses through their own efforts. In an interview with Jornal do Brasil, Guanabara's Secretary of Social Services, Sandra Cavalcanti, said that, as homeowners, the evicted residents "gain credit in the marketplace, a healthy place to raise their children, and the assurance of peace of mind in the future." Despite the euphoric tone, four years later, the same newspaper would report the project's failure, pointing to the residents' drop in income, the rise in crime, the return of removed residents to favelas, and the fact that the 1,200 children born in the housing complex were "as rickety and malnourished as those in the favelas," so their prospects were no better.

Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph of children posing next to a replica of the Statue of Liberty. On the left is the replica of the Statue of Liberty, with the figure raised on a square pedestal. To the right of the children, there is an open area with some distant trees. The children are arranged in front of the replica, some standing closer to the pedestal while others stand further back.