On 1 September 1940, Brazil’s fledgling Institute of Statistics and Geography (IBGE) conducted a national census. It was the first in 20 years, conceived by Getúlio Vargas’ authoritarian Estado Novo, and it aimed to count all Brazilians, even those living in rural hamlets and urban shantytowns previously deemed unquantifiable. The IBGE vigorously encouraged participation; there were prizes for census agents, civic meetings, posters, skits, rallies, and lively press campaigns. On 30 August, Vargas made a “vehement appeal to the people” to “patriotically collaborate” and reveal “what Brazil is really worth now, and what it might become in the future”.
Vargas’ government had already embraced Afro-descendant popular culture as an essential strain of mestiço nationalism. It was thus gratifying when the famed Carmen Miranda recorded a samba entitled – simply – Recenseamento [Census]. Wit...