Census, or “race-colour” categories in Brazil supposedly cover skin tones ranging from very fair to very dark (broadly speaking, from branco (white), pardo (brown), and preto (black), to indígena (native), whatever colour that might be), in such a way that almost 99% of the population is “white”, “brown”, and “black” (in that order, of course), and the census uses the terms “colour” and “race” interchangeably. Naturally, there are other factors at work, like age, gender, region, and socioeconomic status, so a light-skinned pardo person with a well-paying job can be considered branco, but pretos rarely escape the status branded on them—from the moment of conception—as skin colour. More

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