Edward Telles, Ethnicity, Race and Color in Latin America

Edward Telles, director of the multinational collaborative research initiative Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA), explains that profound historical and political forces, including multiculturalism, have helped to shape the formation of ethnic identities and the nature of social relations within and across nations. Based on PERLA surveys for eight countries, Telles will discuss how the region’s profoundly social and economic inequality is at least as much a function of skin color as of ethno-racial identification. 

Edward Telles has been a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UCSB since 2015, where he also holds an affiliation to the Global Studies Department.  Professor Telles is a leading figure in the study of race and ethnicity in the Americas, with an emphasis on Brazil and Latin American societies.  His research interests include comparative race and ethnicity, color and colorism, international immigration, survey methods, social demography, and immigrant integration.  Professor Telles obtained his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Texas and has held previous faculty positions at Princeton and UCLA, as well as teaching and working in Brazil, including at the Ford Foundation in Rio de Janeiro.