In a small pastoral pavilion a minister, flanked by a Confederate flag, conducts a memorial service for the sons and daughters of the Old South who are buried in the adjacent cemetery. The scent of warm corn bread and fried chicken wafts from a nearby picnic table. Strains of the Battle Hymn of the Republic float with gentle familiarity through the heavy air. Only the fact that it is sung in Portuguese seems inappropriate. But, in fact, it is fitting because this get-together occurs some 5,000 miles below the Mason-Dixon line, just outside a southern Brazilian city called Americana.
Four times...
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