Census 2010 Challenged by Distrust in Immigrant Communities
By Robert Waddell, June 12, 2009
 On June 2nd, representatives from the United States Census, the New York City Mayor’s office, the New York Immigration Coalition, the New York Community Media Alliance and New York’s members of immigrant and independent presses met for a briefing on plans for the 2010 Census.
Stacey Cumberbatch of the NYC Census 2010 office said that in New York more than 146,000 languages are spoken and the challenge is “to focus out reach to diverse immigrant populations.”
In the 2000 Census less than half of all households which could have responded to the decade-by-decade survey did not fill out the census questionnaire. Cumberbatch said that the Census was only interested in collecting data, not on immigrant or financial status, information which the form does not ask. The 2020 Census will have only 10 questions and will be mailed out in March of 2010.
Information from the Census is used by journalists, scholars, educators, businesses and politicians. Information gathered determines how federal funds are allocated for childcare, health care, elder care, transit, housing and education.
“Every New Yorker needs to be counted,” said Gullermo Linares, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. “In this process, we have a law for privacy….There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
In order to get as many people involved in the process, the Census is now hiring leaders from communities to direct efforts within different neighborhoods. In late November of this year, the Census will begin hiring individuals to knock on doors.
Chung-What Hong, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition said that it was the special responsibility of the ethnic press to inform and mobilize communities of the Census’s vital importance to their lives.
 Yet still, undocumented workers, those living on public assistance and immigrants, have been known to be distrustful of the government and are afraid that the government could arrest or deport them.
“In 2000, 45 percent of all New Yorkers didn’t trust the census,” said Hong.
The five panelists and some members of this large gathering at the CUNY graduate center for Journalism kept reassuring reporters of the Census’s necessity and its strict confidentiality.
“Immigrants are so much invested in the American dream of being successful,” Linares said. “There’s so much riding on the Census. By not participating, they’re undermining the strategy on an immigrant’s dreams of success in the U.S.”
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
