Talk:Demographics of Cape Verde/Archive 1

Creole (mulatto) 71%, African 28%, European 1%
These figures are out of date. They are figures from the sixties, when the Portuguese administration was still separating the cape verdean society in races.

After the independence (1975), the government(s) of Cape Verde has(have) no longer made statistics concerning the people's color of skin. In a country where the miscegenation process began 500 years ago, it is impossible to set the exact separation between races.

TenIslands 21:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It's mulatto not mestizo
@ TenIslands, why did you revert it back from mulatto to mestizo or "mestiços". The people of Cape Verde are NOT "Mestizos". Mestizos means people whose parents are European and Native AmerIndian ancestry or Asian ancestry. People of Chile, Argentina, Mexico, state of Hawaii, other parts of the United States, and parst of Canada have a large mestizo population (Native AmerIndian or Asian and European ancestry) source1 source2. Mulatto means people whose parents are African and European ancestry like Halle Berry and Mariah Carrey. I highly doubt that there are any Native American Indians or Asians (Philippines and Macau) in Cape Verde.
 * www.intute.ac.uk Creole (mulatto) 71%, African 28%, European 1%
 * www.aneki.com 71%, African 28%, European 1%

If I don't recieve any sufficient/realistic answer on this, then I'll change it back to Mulatto.--Pilot expert 18:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * First of all, English is not my native language, so I can't tell the exact meaning of the words “Mulatto” and “Mestizo” in English. But in Portuguese, the words mulato and mestiço are nearly synonyms. Mestiço is the more “politically correct” term, while mulato may be derogatory in certain contexts. Since this is the Wikipedia in English it would be better to certify first about the usage of the words “Mulatto” and “Mestizo” in English. Second, “Mulatto”, “African” and “European” are not ethnic groups. While “Mulatto” means someone with mixed black and white ancestry, “African” means “from Africa” (no matter if it is black or white) and “European” means “from Europe” (no matter if it is black or white either). These data (71%, 28%, 1%) that you see in a lot of sources, as I stated before are out of date. They are from the sixties, when (in a very racist way) the Portuguese administration use to separate the society in races. After 1975 there has not been statistics in Cape Verde about racial groups. The official position simply says that “a maioria da população é mestiça” — the majority of the population is mestizo (or mulatto, whatever you want). If you want to talk about ethnic groups, in Cape Verde there is pratically a single etnhic group: Cape Verdean...! In cultural terms, the Cape Verdeans are pretty homogeneous, there are not different ethnic groups. To say that “Cape Verde has three ethnic groups” is a very “Europeean” point of view, where they think that people with different skin colour automatically belong to different ethnic groups. Ten Islands 19:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Guy, Mestizos (in Spanish/Castillian) or mestiços (in Portuguese) means people who are half Native AmerIndian or Asian and half white European only. These are the labels the Spanish and Portuguese used for the Casta system when they were colonizing the Americas and parts of Asia. They never used that word to describe people who are half-white Europeans and half-Africans like Halle Berry and Mariah Carrey. They used the word Mulatto for those folks. It might be "un-PC" in our time but that’s the word they used not mestizo or mestiços. I’m not from Cape Verde so I’m not gong to comment on their culture or their national cultural homogenous identity. But to keep using mestizo or mestiços is misleading to students who are reading this article. Maybe a better “PC” word is Creole instead of mulatto or just African since they are Africans.--Pilot expert 20:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Please, be careful. Spanish and Portuguese are not the same language, therefore, cognate words of both languages may not mean the same. The article you pointed out talks about the Spanish America. I’ve re-checked my Portuguese dictionaries, and they all say that mestiço means “from different races” (without specifying which ones). Regarding this article about Cape Verde Demographics I will keep on investigating which is the better way to write in an encyclopedic content. Just to finish, I won’t keep on this conversation with you (lack of time), but since your User Page is empty I don’t know anything about you, or why you are so concerned about these subjects. But if you are interested in our opinion, for the majority of us (Africans) people like Halle Berry or Mariah Carrey are not half-Europeans and half-Africans. They are Americans, half-white and half-black. Again, you are confusing racial aspects with ethnic aspects. Ten Islands 22:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)