I'm not entirely familiar with all the reasons Europeans chose Brazil for their new home, but I can tell you a bit about Italians – there are a whole bunch of factors there. My dentist's family actually originated from Egypt. Her dad was Italian, but he lived in Egypt and married an Armenian refugee before they all immigrated to Brazil. As for my own family, some of them came over with a work contract for farm jobs, but I haven't been able to figure out why the other branch (the Sicilian side) came. On a different note, my cousin is half Lithuanian on her dad's side. He actually came over listed as Polish, but I'm not sure what the story behind that is.
Another part of my family also came over from Gibraltar. They were counted as Spanish, but they actually had part Italian heritage as well. There isn't a whole lot written about this yet, and it's not something you'd typically find in history books. A genealogist could probably give you a more definitive answer, but I'm just sharing my family's story. It's important to remember that the reasons for immigrating varied a lot depending on the family and where they came from. In the south, it was more about settling unpopulated areas, and that goes way back, like 200 years ago (Germans, Italians and so on). In the southeast, it was more about working on cotton farms, and that happened more recently, around 100 years back.
This YouTuber is a genealogist. He has some studies published by the same university I attended, but with a focus on German genealogy:
https://www.youtube.com/@Genealogia_e_Historia_Familiar
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