Minorities now officially a majority in Brazil

[Bacchus39]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/06/16/brazil.race/index.html

(CNN) -- The growing influence of Brazil's minority populations has not just created new opportunities for black and mixed-race Brazilians -- it has shifted demographics.

Results from Brazil's 2010 census, released in late April, show that Brazil is now a minority-majority country. The white population dropped below 50% of the total for the first time, to about 48%. But some say it may have been that way all along, but the statistics did not reflect the reality.

Although the birthrates of blacks and pardos -- the Brazilian term for mestizos, or people of mixed European and Native American heritage -- remain higher than for whites, experts don't cite that as the reason for the shift. Instead, they say that more Brazilians than ever are self-identifying as black or pardo, whereas in the past they would have checked off the box for "white."

"During this decade we have been noticing this increase in people declaring themselves black and pardo," Ana Saboia, a researcher at Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, or IBGE, told CNN. The institute oversees the census.

In the most recent census, 7.5% of Brazilians identified themselves as black, and 43% pardo.