David De Micheli, ’11, spoke to a room full of faculty and students about his research on Brazilian racial identities in the Tillotson Room at the Tippie Alumni Center on Monday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m.

De Micheli studied international studies and French during his time at Allegheny. Afterwards, he went to Cornell University, where he got his Ph.D in government. He was then a postdoctoral Fellow at Tulane University. Today, De Micheli is an assistant professor of political science and ethnic studies at the University of Utah.

De Micheli’s return to campus was exciting news for Allegheny’s students and faculty. He remarked that it wasn’t his first time being back; he previously came for a reunion in 2016 and also stopped by when passing through Meadville one other time. However, this time, coming back as a speaker, has been “really exciting and surreal,” De Micheli said.

De Micheli’s book, “Back to Black: Racial Classification and Political Identity and Brazil,” was released by the Cambridge Press in 2024 and focuses on the phenomenon of racial reclassification in Brazil. De Micheli’s research interests have a regional focus on Latin America, though De Micheli said he chose Brazil to write about because of the country’s “fluid racial boundaries.” These fluid boundaries can be explained by the lack of a clear criteria for racial identification in the country.

“In Brazil, (racial classification) is not really based on your descent, it doesn’t depend on how your parents identify or how they look like — it just depends on what you look like. That gives people a lot more latitude to make choices in how they classify themselves,” De Micheli said. “Sometimes it is helpful to think in contrast with the United States, where we have such rigid rules on who belongs in which racial category. They are mostly based on descent, if your parents are black or white, that kind determines in which racial category you’re fallen.”

In order to dig deep into his research, De Micheli lived in Brazil for a period of time. He stayed eight months in São Paulo and six in Recife. During his stay, he learned how to speak Portuguese, which he said was critical for his studies.

“Many Brazilians don’t speak English, so if I wanted to really hear people’s stories and have them explain to me how it is that many of these racial transformations took place, I had to learn Portuguese,” De Micheli said.

De Micheli’s research further explored how these racial reclassifications hold electoral implications.

“There is a conventional wisdom in Brazil that race is irrelevant in politics,” De Micheli said. “But what we are seeing alongside these patterns of racial reclassification is that highly educated voters, who identify as Black, are very loyal leftists constituents. They are much more likely to subscribe to left-wing ideology in Brazil.”

As his research notes, Brazil rarely saw parties organized around race. Now, De Micheli says that black voters could be considered “some of the most loyal consistent voters of the worker’s party.”

Kayla Mendez, ’26, attended the talk because it was required for two of her classes, but she also found herself curious about learning a little about Brazil.

“I think it was a really interesting topic overall because over here (in the United States), when we talk about Latin America, we don’t really talk much about Brazil; it is mostly Mexico and Guatemala,” Mendez said. “It was interesting to see, because Brazil does say that they are like a racial democracy, so seeing that broken down on that kind of scale was cool.”

Another student present at the talk, Reagan Grace Wheat, ’26, a fellow for the Center of Political Participation, commented how the topic interested her, especially because she had never heard about it beforehand.

“I would say probably that 95% (of the topic) was new,” Wheat said. “I feel like in America we are not taught about Latin America very often, specifically Brazil. So all of the racial reclassification stuff was, like, such a foreign topic to me, but it was super interesting.”

De Micheli shared his relief after publishing his book, noting how stressful and long the writing process can be. It took him nine years, from 2015, when he started his research, until 2024, when he finished the book.

“You spend so much time with the project, so it’s a little bittersweet,” De Micheli said. “You are sad to say goodbye to this project that you have worked on for so long, but it’s also a huge relief to finally be done, kind of like the senior comp.”