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In Brazil, Pardo is a racial classification used in the official census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in censuses since 1950. The word is Portuguese for "brown" or "grey-brown". The other classifications are branco ("White"), negro ("Black"), amarelo ("yellow", meaning East Asians), and indígena ("indigenous", meaning Amerindians).

Definitions of Pardo

According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), Pardo is a broad classification that encompasses Brazilians of mixed race ancestry, mulattos, and assimilated indigenous people ("caboclos"). The term Pardo first appeared in the first census of Brazil, in 1872. The next census of 1890 replaced the word Pardo by mestiço (mixed). The censuses of 1900 and 1920 did not ask about race, arguing that "the answers largely hid the truth". The question about race reappeared in the 1940 census, but the word "pardo" was not given as an option. Pardo began as a miscellany, or "none of the above" racial category. Colour was determined by the census enumerator, and the three options were white, black, and yellow. If the respondent did not fit into any of the categories, the enumerator simply drew a horizontal line. When the census data came to be tabulated, all responses with horizontal lines were collected into the single category of "pardo". The term "pardo" was not used as an option as a response to the rise of European racism at the time, as an assurance to the public that census data would not be used for discriminatory purposes. In the 1950 census, "pardo" was actually added as a choice of answer, and colour was chosen by the respondent instead of being determined by the enumerator. This trend remains, with the exception of the 1970 census, which also did not ask about race.

The Brazilian census is based on self-classification. According to sociologist Demétrio Magnoli, in Brazil the concept of "race" is secondary, prevailing the classifications based on skin color. This denotes a suspicion about its objectivity. According to him, the Pardo category is specifically designated to include the people who identify themselves as mixed.

The 20th century saw a large growth of population that self-declared to be Pardo in the censuses. In 1940, 21.2% of Brazilians said to be Pardo. In 2000, it had increased to 38.5% of the population. This is in part due to the continuous process of miscegenation of the Brazilian population, but not only because of that. Races are molded in accordance with perceptions and ideologies prevalent in each historical moment. In the 20th century, a significant part of Brazilians who used to self-report to be Black in earlier censuses chose to move to the Pardo category. A smaller but also significant part of the population that used to self-report to be White also chose to move to the Pardo category. Magnoli describes this phenomenon as the "pardização" (pardization) of Brazil.

According to a study, the "pardos" in Rio de Janeiro were found to be predominantly European, at a roughly 70% ancestry range (see table). The geneticist Sérgio Pena criticised foreign schollar Edward Telles for lumping "blacks" and "pardos" in the same category, given the predominant European ancestry of the "pardos" throughout Brazil.

History

The formation of the Brazilian people is marked by a mixture of whites, blacks and Indians. According to geneticist Sérgio Pena "with the exception of immigrants of first or second generation, there is no Brazilian who does not carry a bit of African and Amerindian genetic". About the first centuries of colonization of Brazil, the absence or rarity of Portuguese women among the settlers is historically reported. As there was a male predominance in the European contingent present in Brazil, the sexual partners, or wives or concubines of those settlers were mostly Amerindian or African women. This sexual asymmetry is marked on the genetics of the Brazilian people, regardless of skin color: there is a predominance of European ancestors on the paternal side, and of Amerindian and African ancestors on the maternal side.

Miscegenation was not new for the Portuguese. According to sociologists Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda and Gilberto Freyre when the Portuguese arrived in Brazil they were already partly mixed. This is due to the several centuries of coexistence with Muslim invaders from North Africa, known as Moors. Moreover, at the beginning of Brazil's colonization, there was already a large Black slave population in Portugal. The process of miscegenation, which was already happening to some extent in Portugal, was intensified in Brazil.

In the first century of colonization, there was a great mixture between Portuguese males and Amerindian females in Brazil. However, the Amerindian population was decimated by epidemics, wars and slavery. Since 1550, African slaves began to be brought to Brazil in large numbers, replacing the Amerindian slave manpower. Miscegenation between Portuguese males and African females was very common. The mixture between White females and Black or Amerindian males was quite uncommon, even though there are reports that it did happen. This mixture in Brazil involved mostly the Portuguese settlers, but not exclusively. The other European immigrants who came to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries (Italians, Spaniards, Germans, etc) also participated in the process. Among the many immigrant groups in Brazil, there was a large predominance of men in many of them. In general the immigrants were poor, and they married poor Brazilian women, which in most cases meant dark-skinned women (because of the correlation between skin color and social class).

A genetic study conducted on White Brazilians suggests that the European and African mixture prevailed in Southeastern and Northeastern Brazil, both the most populous regions of Brazil. European and Amerindian mixture prevailed in Northern and Southern Brazil. Central-Western Brazil was not included at this study. According to Darcy Ribeiro, miscegenation between Whites and Blacks predominated in Brazil in general. However, there are regional exceptions where the indigenous element was more remarkable. Northern Brazil in general, Sertão (interior of Northeast) and the Pampa region in the South (Southwest Rio Grande do Sul) are some of the Brazilian areas where the Amerindian element may had been more important than the African one. However, the African element is not absent where the Amerindian predominated, neither the Amerindian element is absent where the African predominated. In fact, in all Brazilian regions contributions from European, African and indigenous people are found on the local population, even though the degree of contribution of each ethnic group varies from region to region.

Not all descendants of this mixture of peoples are included in the Pardo category. Since racial classifications in Brazil are based on skin color, and not in genetic ancestry, a large part of the self-reported White population has African and Amerindian ancestors. In Brazil, there is tendency of light Mulatos and Caboclos to be counted as Whites. Also, a large part of the self-reported Pardo population is composed of "Blacks" who ceased being identified as such and also of some "Whites" who moved to this category. Besides skin color, there are other social factors that influence the racial classifications in Brazil, such as social class, richness, racial prejudice and stigma of being Black, Mulatto or Amerindian. These factors in general lead to a tendency of "whitening" themselves.

Moreno

Unofficially, Brazilians also use a racial classification of "moreno". In a 1995 survey, 32% of the population self-identified as "moreno", with a further 6% self-identifying as "moreno claro" ("light brown"), and 7% self-identified as "pardo". Telles describes both classifications as "biologically invalid", but sociologically significant.

Pardo was also a casta classification used in Colonial Spanish America from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and was more or less synonymous with Mulatto.

References

1. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística
2. ^ MAGNOLI, Demétrio. Uma Gota de Sangue, Editora Contexto 2008 (2008)
3. ^ David I. Kertzer and Dominique Arel (2002). Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses. Cambridge University Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 0521004276.
5. ^ Freyre, Gilberto. Casa-Grande e Senzala, Edition. 51, 2006 (2006).
6. Metade de negros em pesquisa tem ancestral europeu
7. ^ RIBEIRO, Darcy. O Povo Brasileiro, Companhia de Bolso, fourth reprint, 2008 (2008).
8. The Phylogeography of Brazilian Y-Chromosome Lineages
9. DE HOLLANDA, Sérgio Buarque. Raízes do Brasil.
10. [http://www.cienciahoje.uol.com.br/materia/resource/download/41917 Retrato Molecular do Brasil
11. Frequency of Continent-Specific mtDNA Haplotypes in the Brazilian mtDNA Pool
13. O DNA dos Pampas
14. Frequency of Continent-Specific mtDNA Haplotypes in the Brazilian mtDNA Pool
15. ^ Edward Eric Telles (2004). "Racial Classification". Race in Another America: the significance of skin color in Brazil. Princeton University Press. pp. 81–84. ISBN 0691118663.

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