Census reaches out to people wary of the government

By Sinthia Mireya Turcios

Courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau

People ignore the census form for a lot of reasons. Undocumented immigrants fear that immigration officials will use the information to deport them.

“Please head to the basement to hear about the 2010 Census,” announced the priest at my church a few weeks ago.

As my family and I headed down the stairs to the basement I heard comments about the census like, “Who reads my personal info?” “Nobody cares if I live here anyways, so why do it?” and “What’s so important about it?”

The basement was packed with immigrant families that wanted to hear more about the Census and why exactly was this so important to them. Norma Garces, who works on Hennepin County’s census promotion, said the immigrant community needed to fill out and send back the census forms because this is one way we could obtain help from the government and be counted.

I remember her saying, “It’s like when going to vote. You want to be part of it because it can affect how the future will look for you, your children and community. The only difference is that everyone gets a chance of being part of it no matter what your legal status is.”

People ignore the census form for a lot of reasons. Undocumented immigrants fear that immigration officials will use the information to deport them. People with too many people living in their apartments fear they’ll get in trouble with the landlord. Some people just figure that they don’t matter anyway.

That morning at church was the first time I ever heard about the Census. The speakers assured us that our answers will be kept confidential. Landlords, police and immigration officials don’t get to see it. Nobody but census officials can see it for 72 years.

The second time I found more information at a meeting in February with members of the Minneapolis Complete Count Committee and people from the city and the census bureau. There were people from Minneapolis neighborhoods who wanted to find out how they could help get everyone to count in this year’s Census.

Elizabeth Glidden, who represents part of south Minneapolis on the city council, specified that for every 100 people missed in the census, the city loses $1 million in federal funds over the next 10 years for everything from police to housing to health.

“So this has very real consequences if we miss people, and we do,” Glidden said.

In 2000, only 68 percent of people in Minneapolis mailed back their census forms, leaving out one-third of people to be counted by census workers or not at all.

What’s crazier is that there are far fewer questions on the census form than when signing up for a credit card.

“Our community has been working hard at this. The key point is to go out and inform everyone about this and how they can help,” says Hannah Garcia, staff member for the Minneapolis Complete Count Committee, a group of community leaders who work to get people to fill out their census forms. She added, “One of our goals is to create more visibility on the census.”

The Minneapolis committee has held rallies at the Cub Foods in north Minneapolis and Midtown Global Market on Lake Street, she said. Garcia and others talked to 100 businesses on Lake Street and convinced many to put up census posters and flyers And they speak at places where people feel safe, like my church.

Why are immigrants afraid of the census? Garcia explains that some of the problems are “language barriers, government distrust and just not knowing.” She stresses that nobody from the immigration bureau has access to the information. “You’re just sharing a little information which isn’t all that personal.”

She also explains how counting everyone really helps people get help. “Interpreters are based on the census. The money to help English language programs for hospitals and other businesses that need it” is based on census data, she said.

Andrew Virden, who is recruiting temporary workers to help with the census, said the census is hiring people to go door-to-door to count people who don’t send back their forms. People who are citizens and at least 18 take an on-line test and can earn up to $16.50 an hour. For information, go to 2010.census.gov.

One of the people at the meeting who caught my attention was Cloresteen Wilson, a Minneapolis resident who nodded every time the presenters said that we needed to reach out more to communities of color and immigrants.

Wilson, who is African-American and 80 years old, explained, “There’s people who don’t vote for the same reason they won’t fill out the census … It’s mistrust. They figure I’m not going to count. Doesn’t mean anything anyway. Black people have been stepped on. So many have been to jail. They’re doing illegal things to make a living.”

Like V.J. Smith, the head of the Minneapolis chapter of MAD DADS, Wilson said the census should hire more neighborhood residents who may not score as high on tests but know their communities well.

“I believe in the United States system and I love my country. But they don’t really know how to reach out to the people who are afraid of the government because they don’t know how that situation feels like” she said.