Introduction: North and South America

Abstract

This section comprises the countries of Canada, USA, and Bermuda; the Caribbean Island countries; Central America; and South America. These are included in the United Nations Statistics Division’s ‘North America’ and ‘South America’. However, these regions conceal considerable heterogeneity in the way ‘mixedness’ is measured. Consequently, the above four distinct geographical entities are used to compare census practices. Firstly, the findings reported are of two analytical studies that have compared census ethnicity data collection in North and South America as part of a set of six world regions. Secondly, there are substantial differences in the history of ethnicity data collection and the conceptualization of both ethnicity/race and ‘mixedness’ across the four regions. For example, it is notable that some of the Latin American censuses do not attempt to categorize the race/ethnicity for their full populations but focus on segments such as the Afrodescendant and indigenous populations. Some of these differences are considered in a section addressing the broader historical picture. Thirdly, measuring ‘mixedness’ in the above four regions is examined in the 2010 Census round questionnaires to identify differences in conceptual basis and terminology and categorization and question format. Finally, the seven individual country chapters that comprise this section of the book are introduced.