The PERLA team designed a common survey instrument for four countries (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Colom­bia) based on extensive discussion of the topics and discussion and pretesting of the survey questions. The survey items included a wide range of issues regarding race and ethnicity in Latin America in contemporary times including in the way ethnic identities are formed, the extent and nature of inequality and discrimination including that based on ethnoracial identity as well as skin color, the nature of stereotyping, reports of discrimination against the respondent and that the respondent witnessed, the nature of social relations across racial/ethnic boundaries and public opinion regarding social movements and public policies based on ethnicity and race, feelings about the nation, sexuality and a host of indicators about socioeconomic position and inequality.

The PERLA data is cur­rently for use by col­lab­o­ra­tors and will even­tu­ally be made pub­lic. On the other hand, the 2010 LAPOP data (with the eth­nic­ity mod­ule) are now public.

We seek to examine these comparatively across the four nations and historically, asking what are the historical, political and social contexts in each country that gives rise to these manifestations? We pay particular attention to differences across ethnoracial groups, particularly afro-descendants, indigenous peoples, mestizos and whites and examine differences by skin color, which we measure in our survey using a color palette.