Lusophobia or anti-Portuguese sentiment is hostility, racism or hatred toward

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

, the

Portuguese people The Portuguese people () are a Romance nation and ethnic group indigenous to Portugal who share a common culture, ancestry and language. The Portuguese people's heritage largely derives from the pre-Celts, Proto-Celts ( Lusitanians, C ...

or the

Portuguese language Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, ...

and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

Etymology

Like " Lusitanic", the word "Lusophobia" ( pt, lusofobia) derives from "

Lusitania Lusitania (; ) was an ancient Iberian Roman province located where modern Portugal (south of the Douro river) and a portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and the province of Salamanca) lie. It was named after the Lusitani or Lu ...

", the

Ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

that comprised what is now Central and Southern Portugal and

Extremadura Extremadura (; ext, Estremaúra; pt, Estremadura; Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is an autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central-western part of the Iberian Peninsula, it ...

, and "

phobia A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avoi ...

", which means "fear of". The opposite concept is "Lusophilia".

Brazil

In the 19th century, the term ''lusofobia'' was often used to describe nationalist sentiments in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, a former

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state' ...

of the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...

, with liberal politicians in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

and

Pernambuco Pernambuco () is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it seventh-most populous state of Brazil and with around 98,148 km², being the ...

advocating the reduction of Portuguese immigration and involvement in the Brazilian economy although almost all of them were of Portuguese descent. In

, the "Jacobinos", a small national radical group, were the strongest opponents of the '' galegos'', the Portuguese immigrants, who have always been the biggest ethnocultural community in Brazil. In the immediate aftermath of

Pedro I of Brazil Dom Pedro I (English: Peter I; 12 October 1798 – 24 September 1834), nicknamed "the Liberator", was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil. As King Dom Pedro IV, he reigned briefly over Portugal, where he also becam ...

downfall in 1831, the poor mixed-race and black people, including slaves, staged anti-Portuguese riots in Salvador.

United Kingdom

In 2007, after the three-year-old

Madeleine McCann Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person who disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007, at the age of 3. ''The Daily Telegraph'' described the disappeara ...

disappeared from

Praia da Luz Praia da Luz (, changing to before a following vowel), officially Luz, is a civil parish of the municipality of Lagos, in Algarve region, Portugal. The population of the civil parish in 2011 was 3,545, in an area of 21.78 km². Also known as ...

, in the

Algarve The Algarve (, , ; from ) is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities ( ''concelhos'' or ''municípios'' in Portuguese). The region has it ...

region, in southern Portugal, many British media outlets wrote articles highly critical of Portugal and Portuguese police that portrayed Portugal as a "backwards banana republic". Others in the media promoted anti-Portuguese sentiment with ideas such as boycotting Portugal as a holiday destination, but that was not reflected in general public opinion, which saw record numbers of British tourists visit Portugal. Estimates were that a record 2 million British tourists holidayed in Portugal in 2007. Notable anti-Portuguese articles by Tony Parsons received a record number of complaints to the

Press Complaints Commission The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Inde ...

for that year.

References

{{reflist, 30em Anti-Portuguese sentiment Portuguese culture