The research focuses on the identities (re)construction processes experienced by a group of Cape Verdean students in Rio de Janeiro. Mainly identified by Brazilians as blacks and mulattoes, those students come from a society where miscegenation is seen as a national identity specificity. This speech, constructed by an elite that eagerly adopted Gilberto Freyre`s ideas, intended to differentiate the Cape Verdeans from the populations of the other Portuguese colonies in Africa granting the islanders a second colonizer status. In Rio de Janeiro, however, it was possible to verify that the majority of those youngsters had developed a more critical view regarding the idea of miscegenation. This process occurred simultaneously to the valorization of an afro identity, possibly influenced by the intense debate regarding the implementation of identities politics in Brazil. Nevertheless, the transformations experimented by the Cape Verdean students can not be reduced to the ones regarding the ethnic identity. Coming from a country where there are more inhabitants outside than inside their geographical borders, to study abroad means for those youngsters not only to be in the path to become part of the archipelago`s future intellectual elite, but also to construct themselves as Cape Verdeans, since adaptation to other cultures is perceived as a national specialty.