“It was quite a curiosity that people came to ask if we studied or if the house was owned or rented,” says Jorge, who at 87 years old remembers the first census that was carried out, in 1950.

Jorge Andrade Grijalva was 14 years old when the census takers arrived at his house in 1950, in the first population census carried out in Ecuador. He lived in the La Magdalena sector, near the historic center, in the south of Quito, a neighborhood dedicated to making roof tiles at that time.

At 87 years old, he remembers that the interview was brief, no more than 20 minutes. His father was the one who answered the questions. “Two people came to the house and asked for the father of the family. They said if the house was owned or rented, how many children, what is the salary, if the woman worked; At that time they were dedicated to housework. We were four brothers; They asked if we were studying.

Jorge says that he and his brothers just remained silent while their father answered the questionnaire. “That visit was quite a curiosity. There was propaganda so that nobody left the house, so that everyone could answer the questions.

Historian Rodolfo Pérez Pimentel knows that the first census, in 1950, was a general provision of the United States for all Latin American countries. “It was the beginning of a path that was planned to be followed in accordance with the construction of the Pan-American highway, which was made from the south of the continent to the north. The idea was integrationist”.

In the middle of the 20th century, the Cold War began between the United States and what was then the Soviet Union, the two hegemonic powers that remained after the end of World War II, in 1945. In that year, the Organization of United Nations. “U.S. The US did not want to have problems with the back door, which was Latin America”. (YO)