EL ANGEL DEL SENOR COMO JESUS ANTES DE SER ENCARNADO Existe un pasaje muy importante acerca de un angel en Exodo 23:

The global nature of the eCounts? data base from which this study is drawn allowed for comparison between the ethnic enumeration practices in the Pacific island territories and those of historical colonial metropoles. These metropoles include Britain, France, and the United States. Australia and New Zealand, though founded as British colonies themselves (and certainly colonised territories in respect to their indigenous populations), became political metropoles themselves in the 20th Century, with control of territories elsewhere in the region. Given their large size and established governmental infrastructure, all completed census form for these metropoles have been located. Practice between these metropoles and their Pacific territories can therefore be compared cross-sectionally across census rounds. This section explicitly examines this relationship between ethnic counting practices of the Pacific island states in comparison to their colonial metropoles over the period.

The British Pacific territories appear to have enumerated ethnically since well before the beginning of the study period. Of these territories, Tonga and Fiji, during the earliest census round included in this study, the only one for which they remained colonies, included undefined questions asking “is this person- “followed by a list of ethnic categories. In the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (modern- day Kiribati and Tuvalu) colonial-era forms were not located, though the census

122

report for the colonial-era census of 1968 references ethnic origins. British Solomon Islands censuses in 1970 and 1970 similarly asked ethnic origin. In all four cases, Lewis (2001) and earlier published census reports suggest ethnic counting had originated with the earliest colonial censuses. As British colonies, Australia and New Zealand differentiated racial groups from at least the early 1900s (Kukutai, 2012; Wright, 2011). Britain itself, which had largely exited the Pacific by 1980 retaining authority only of tiny Pitcairn Island, did not itself measure ethnicity in national censuses until 1991, for anti-discriminatory reasons prompted by the 1976 Race Relations Act (Ballard, 1997).

French territories in the Pacific similarly appear to have counted and classified ethnicity in the early colonial period. In the 1980 census round, all three territories asked respondents their ‘origine ethnique’ (ethnic origin) while the New Hebrides/Vanuatu (a condominium colony until 1980, where authority was shared between Britain and France) asked ‘group ethnique’ (ethnic group). France itself does not ask ethnic questions, with questions on ethnicity, language or religion illegal under French law (Blum, 2002). The only permissible division on the French census is between the nationals (les Français) and resident foreigners (les étrangers). While earlier having no qualms counting their subjects in this way, in recent years the French Pacific territories show greater similarity with metropolitan French practice in this respect. French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna, France’s Polynesian colonies, stopped asking ethnic questions in the 2000 census round, asking nationality (civic, differentiating between French and foreign) and birthplace. New Caledonia, the largest French colony in the region, asked ethnic questions over the entire study period, except in the 2003 census, when French President Chirac declared the question unconstitutional and such questions were erased. After a public outcry and considerable debate in the territory, and a boycott of ten percent (Haberkorn, 2005), the following census again included such questions.

123

In the United States the government has conducted a census every ten years since 1790, with a question on ‘race’ always included.7 In its Pacific territories ethnic difference has similarly been measured since the US first acquired sovereignty (United States Census Bureau, 2013). Interestingly, like that of France’s colonies, in the remaining US territories ethnic counting practice over the study period has also converged with practice on the mainland. Early censuses in American Samoa, Guam and the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (modern-day Palau, the Northern Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, and Federated States of Micronesia) were administered by local administrations and asked separately worded questions (such as an American Samoan census asking ethnic origin: “e.g.: Samoan, Part-Samoan, Caucasian, Tongan, Niuean, Korean etc.”). However, beginning in 1970, the US Census Bureau began conducting decennial censuses in conjunction with mainland censuses in all three territories, using standardised forms. In 1980, the census asked respondents their ethnicity, and provided a standardised list of response prompts.8 In 1990, question formats in the remaining territories9 moved still closer to mainland practice, with questionnaires asking respondents their ethnic origin or race (using these terms interchangeably) and including in the response prompts the categories of white and black. An identical format was used in 2000 and 2010.

In the territories of the other colonising powers of the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, the overall picture is difficult to ascertain due to missing forms in the early study period. However, in the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau, New Zealand’s colonies during the study period (Western Samoa gained independence in 1962) appear to have earlier asked ‘race’-based questions, and although after they gained self-governance (in free association with New Zealand) the 1976 Niuean form contained a descent question asking those of

7

Though admittedly the ‘racial’ classification of modern US censuses blurs boundaries, as across decades and sometimes within one census, the categories have mixed citizenship status, what is commonly understand as race, nationality, religion, and ethnicity (see Nobles, 2000).

8

“What is your ethnicity? For example Carolinian, Chamorro, Filipino, Korean, Marshallese, Palauan, Samoan, Tongan etc.”

124

mixed descent to give racial fractions10 and the 1976 Cook Islands form explicitly asked respondent’s their race. This does correspond with practice in New Zealand, where questions referred to descent or race until 1981. In Tokelau, New Zealand’s sole remaining Pacific Island territory, the earliest located census (1996) and those subsequent have asked ethnic origin questions, differing in practice from New Zealand, where respondents were asked their ethnic group. In the Australian territories, Nauru11 and Papua New Guinea, which gained independence in 1968 and 1975 respectively, pre-independence forms were not located, limiting the analysis available, although Papua New Guinea appears to have rejected ethnic counting, and the only located Nauruan census (in 2002) asked respondents their nationality (in an ethnic sense).