Latin America is known for its racial and ethnic diversity.  Based on the best and worst recent data, about 40 million of the 550 million people in Latin America are indigenous and about 130 million are afro-descendants. This compares to about 40 million U.S. African Americans and 2.5 million American Indians. Although interest in ethnicity and race in Latin America has increased tremendously in the past two decades, especially in Brazil, our knowledge of the current situation there is scant, especially when compared to the United States. PERLA’s goal is to empirically examine numerous dimensions of race and ethnicity across Latin America. The project is directed by Edward Telles, Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and Associate of the Office of Population Research and is being conducted in collaboration with researchers from Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, and the United States (see about authors).

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