When Brazil’s national statistics institute IGBE carried out its most recent national census in 2010, the results were unexpected. For the first time ever, more than half of the population – 54 percent, to be exact – identified as either black or brown/mixed.
Labels used in the census to describe race haven’t evolved much over time. In 2010, Brazilians could choose only between black, white, brown/mixed, indigenous, or, for its inhabitants with East-Asian heritage, yellow (yikes). In fact, this isn’t so different from the first census conducted by IGBE in 1872, offering the options of ‘black’, ‘white’, brown/mixed (‘pardo’),...
