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Every ten years the U.S. Census Bureau tries to identify everyone in America. The Bureau's goal is to get a "snapshot" of the country. This year, the Census is partnering with 200,000 community organizations to get the word out — from creating public service announcements to reach specific communities, to just going door-to-door and talking to people.
There's a lot at stake. Historically, the Census determines how many representatives states should have in Congress (Washington could be up for an additional House district.) But the Census has come to mean much more than that. The count determines how much money the federal government distributes through scores of state and local programs.
There are a few changes for 2010. You'll only be asked to fill out the Short Form — just ten questions. And for the first time, gays and lesbians can check the "married" box and the data will be counted, rather than thrown out. This is only the second time people will be allowed to check more than one box for race or ethnicity, and you can write in your race if you don't see it listed.
How accurate of a snapshot does the Census create? How do you categorize yourself? How do the categories on the 2010 Census reflect your sense of racial, ethnic or sexual identity?
GUESTS:
- Deni Luna: Media Specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau
- Marcus Mundy: President and CEO of the Urban League of Portland
- Gloria Wiggins: Latino Services Division Manager with Catholic Charities
- Niva Bennett: Former outreach worker with the U.S. Census
Tagged as: census · ethnicity · race · sexual identity
Photo credit: Joel Mark Witt / Creative Commons
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$15 million... wow. Well at least now I know how much money was spent. Not sure I buy the argument that it saved over $500 million by increasing awareness. If people saw it and were cognizant enough to open it, why wouldn't they just open the ACTUAL census form when it arrives?
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My first response was to recycle the census letter without opening it. I suspected it was "advertising" for the census.
What bothers me more is the BBC report that federal air marshals have made four arrests since airline security has been increased . The cost of the program per arrest is $200 million dollars. I believe this factoid was culled from Harper magazine's weekly distillation of news, but here are more references.
google "air marshal $200 million"
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The census is odd, because we all (well, many of us) strive for mindset that we are all the same, that our differences are unimportant, but the census reminds us that we are all categorically different, and differences do matter, or they matter enough to be counted and studied. Of course we are allegedly studying these differences to try and level the playing field of life, but one wonders when the field will be level? And, for how long will we need to keep track of these differences, these categories?
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Between 1955 and 1993 I worked abroad for a total of 33 yrs mainly in emergency and development aid. Thirteen countries. One thing I learned is race, ethnicity, religion, language all count. Indeed are of paramount importance. Other lessons learned: diversity is weakness NOT strength as Americans have been bamboozled into believing. The hispanics and others flooding in will soon enough disabuse white native Americans of this particular illusion.
Govt KNOWS, even as we are supposed not to know, that diversity does affect political behavior at every level. These same dishonest politicians seem to ignore the political/social history of the peoples pouring over our unguarded borders. South of that border, when people become upset with politicians, they dig up their rifles and go out and start shooting. As native born whites become a marginalized and hated minority, the nature of politics will change to reflect the total corruption of our southern neighbors.
I suppose the census gives the politicians some idea how long they have left to fill their pockets and get out of Dodge before the shooting starts.
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Last time i was visited every month for six months by a census worker asking all kinds of personal info. Why does this happen and why do you want this much info?
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As above Jeff..they want to know how much time they have left before the Hell they are creating breaks loose around their heads.
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10 years ago I had a much higher confidence in my government AND its ability to keep my data confidential in regards to nongovernmental entities; not that it did, I could just convince myself it did.
Today, I have no confidence in any aspect of my government except that it is lying to itself (thus to me/us). In light of the federal governments’ proving its incompetence on a regular basis particularly when it comes to secure electronic data storage; I wonder if it is wise to answer questions that you would not answer (truthfully) on an unsecured web site? -
As a person doing genealogical research on my family, I would say fill it out, and accurately for future generations as well. It tells the future who we are now.
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Why doesn't the census ask how many Germans, Norwegians, Swedish, French, Austrians, Russians, Polish, Saudis, Jews, you get my drift, live in America? For some reason the census and others always address those of Spanish-Indian decent as His-spanish..... as though they have just arrived across across from the Rio Grand? There are quite a few million of us whom have been here longer than the anglos, yet one is made to believe that the above nationalities have been here forever. I find (we find) the term His-spanish insulting.
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I think if some of the skeptics about the usefulness of the census were to engage in research of their ancestors, to delve into genealogy, they would find out how valuable the census is. Most of us are doomed to disappear in the historical record; the census preserves a few facts about us.
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Has the US Census ever thought of privatizing the task? I think that if the constitutionally required information is obtained, why can't this be turned over to a corporation that already has a national reach?
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Back in the early 90's I was compiling answers to a survey of seniors, most of whom appeared to be native americans. We eventually realized that they understood the term to mean not immigrants and were checking that box if they had been born here, whatever racial group they might have been!
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So much is being talked about to include different foreign speaking citizens, how about the deaf community?
Will here be certified sign language interpreters for those 'native' language is American Sign Language?
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The difference is that the deaf community can read... so they can read the letter in the mail, read the newspaper articles, television advertisement closed captioning, etc. Foreign language speakers may not be able to read English.
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Having gone through the census hiring application process, I can say they most likely would have ASL qualified workers. The census takes care to fit the census worker with the community.
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I hope it is known that information the census gathers can in no way be used as incriminating i.e. people who may or may not be here legally, many of whom are involved in ethnic communities they could benefit by filling out the census.
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I am sort unsure what to think about checking race. One speaker associated with a local Portland Organization, (im familiar with it, but for some reason it's name is escaping me) urging people of the Black community racially identify themselves in the census so that funding can be gained for communities of racial minorities.
Another commenter had a problem just identifying as white rather than of a more specific heritage (i think he mentioned German?) He also mentioned people should put down their race because of a sense of pride of racial heritage.
But also the concern arises of becoming color blind--- not having a race. If people didn't have a race, there couldn't be racism. Also, our heritage came from the earth creating human life before countries existed-- isn't that connection more important than on that comes from countries?
just some things to think about.
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I wonder how many people take the census seriously? How many people fill out the forms willy nilly in opposition to government efforts? How accurate, comprehensive or complete is the gathered data?
When the Census spends $15 million to send a letter saying another form is in the mail, I can understand why they did it, but that $15 million could have been used to help people directly.
If air marshals have made four arrests for $200 million per arrest then I'm more conerned that our government is incompetent.
I don't fly because I'm afraid of terrorists blowing up planes; I'm more concerned that planes will fall out of the sky because airlines and regulators haven't been allowed to do their jobs.
Isn't erumpent paranoia fun? Long live Philip K. Dick.
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The Oregon State Library has a page of US Census resources for Complete Count Committees that might be of interest to listeners. Included on the page are methods used by outreach ogranizations to improve counts, documentation of census issues, and links to the history of the census.
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Well, this is a small (and I do mean tiny) step forward -- allowing our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers check the "married" box, -- but what about those among us who are members of other aspects of the Queer community? By this, I mean those who identify as transgendered or genderqueer or asexual? By my count there are AT LEAST 4 different genders. (And the Census Bureau is still using the imprecise term "sex." I guess they want to define us by what anatomy is between our legs, not what wiring is in our hearts and minds and souls.)
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Extremely disappointed with the whole discussion. First, there was a nice laugh about the people who answer space alien as a ethnic group. I asked what i thought was a serious question: that a census worker came to my house with a computer, stayed about an hour a visit, every month for 6 months. Then, when my question was finally asked, after all the issues about how we get counted as gays/Hungarians/etc, my question was posed to a caller! Then the "media specialist" (!) responded with a trite: "you give more info to the pizza boy."
No.
Didn't anybody wonder about this? She didn't deny my claim (it's true). I feel like i wasted my time expecting intelligence from the discussion. It seems it was a media event- was it orchestrated by the census bureau?
I find it hard to trust gov't anymore, least of all the federal bureaucracy, mostly because of things like this. I urge everyone to do the same.
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Comments are now closed.
I really think that the letter that was sent that says "look for the census next week" was a total waste of money. With all the other ads and the door-to-door coverage for homes where the form is not filed, I don't see why they needed to print and mail this "informative" document.