This paper, based on ethnographic research, presents the most evident changes among groups of low-income youth, the vast majority of whom are black or mixed-race, in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, over the course of ten years. The notions of ideal work and ideal male or female partner change along with the growing popularity of a perception of citizenship that is increasingly centered on individuals and their freedom of movement and conspicuous consumption - the measurement of participation in societies and their collective rituals. Among these youth there is also a renewed interest in blackness and youth, features which are no longer hidden, but celebrated and vindicated. In this context, new demands for citizenship take shape, along with a new feeling of relative dispossession: both are indicators of the new face of poverty in Brazil.
multiculturalism; citizenship; youth; Salvador; Rio de Janeiro