From Racial Discrimination to Class Segregation in Postcolonial Urban Mozambique - Geographies of Privilege - page 207

laws that prevailed until the early 1960s, blacks who officially “assimilated” were re-
cognizedasPortuguesecitizens, withthelimited rightsthatcitizenship underadictator-
shipconferred,includingtherighttoliveintheCityofCement.Thepathtoassimilation
was arduous, and few Mozambicans had either the resources or opportunity to attempt
it.Onehadtoachieveacertainlevelofformaleducation,formalemployment,andliter-
acy in Portuguese. After one achieved assimilado status, an official visited one's home
to verify that only Portuguese was spoken, that meals were “Portuguese” and eaten with
aknifeandfork,andthathusbandandwifebothdressedinappropriatelyWesterncloth-
ing. The family also had to reside, at minimum, in a decently built wood-framed, zinc-
paneled house, rather than a house built of reeds.
Assimilationwasadegradingprocess,predicatedonthecompletedis-avowalofone's
African traditions and values—at least outwardly. It was humiliating, too, that whites
didn't also have to prove they were “civilized.” 3 And so, though legal assimilation was
a virtual requisite for better employment opportunities, there were some Mozambicans
with many of the necessary qualifications who refused to go through with it (Penvenne
1995; Castelo 2007). For decades the path to assimilation served as Portuguese proof
that its policies did not distinguish by race, since even Africans could become citizens.
In 1960 there were approximately 5,000 assimilados in a colony of about 6 million
(Newitt 1995). All other blacks were identified as indígenas (“natives”) and black men
were subject to forced labor if not formally employed. The fact that fractionally few
blacks met the Portuguese standard reinforced the notion that the essence of black-
ness was to be uncivilized. Whiteness, meanwhile, was linked to a bundle of practices
and experiences—language, cuisine, dress, a specific educational curriculum, occupa-
tion—that defined what it meant to be civilized, or evoluído , evolved. And whiteness
remained linked to a specific place: the formalized city.
Assimilados were office clerks, printing press typesetters, truck drivers, nurses, and
schoolteachers. Though they earned more than black men who unloaded ships at the
port, or black men who laundered the clothes for Portuguese families in town, or black
women who worked on plantations at the city's edge, their incomes were still very mod-
est by the standards of what most whites earned. In the 1960s, many better-off blacks
stood with men of mixed race in the societal pecking order: working in jobs below
whites in the civil service or as laborers, and often for a great deal less pay (Penvenne
1995;Castelo2007).Withfewexceptions,whitePortuguesereceivedpreferenceforjob
openings (Honwana 1988; Penvenne 1995).