SEATTLE -- It all comes down to trust.
With 2010 underway, the U.S. Census Bureau is once again gearing up to survey everyone in the country, but this time they have a renewed focus to reach out to traditionally undercounted minority and immigrant communities.
And they're doing so via people those communities trust, like Sahra Farah, president of Somali Community Services.
Farah said they're telling people, "Don't be afraid of them. Nobody's going to ask your social security, nobody's going to ask if you're illegal in the United States or not. They just want to count how many people living in that place.”
Every ten years, the Bureau has to chip away at language, cultural, and racial barriers between the government and skeptical citizens, as well as non-citizens. In 2010, the Bureau's greatly expanded partnership division has about $120 million to connect with local advocacy groups and ethnic media.
“We’ve blanketed the state with basically, with different ethnic groups,” said census partnership specialist Ahmed Scego, who is Somali American and speaks Somali. On Wednesday, Scego was speaking to East African senior citizens at the Somalia Community Services headquarters in Rainier Beach.
"Our state will get its fair share [of federal funding] as a result of the head count," said Scego. "And that money goes to hospitals, public housing, transportation, healthcare, every aspect of the lives of our community members.”
Non-English media outlets are also a prong in the census' plan.
"They came over to Seattle to actually reach out and invited all the multicultural ethnic... media outlets," said Gustavo Montoya, president of El Mundo, a Bellevue-based Spanish language newspaper. "They’re definitely doing the right thing by reaching out to us... papers and radio and TV… definitely bring a connection with our community.”
Dozens of posters in various languages have gone out to these groups, including a Vietnamese poster explaining that each person counted translates into a larger share of 400 billion federal dollars usually doled out to local communities.
"This is probably the first time that they've all kind of come together and work together to try to make sure everyone is counted," said Derek Wing, communications director of the national Asian Pacific Center on Aging.
A confidential, but comprehensive, count that ultimately boils down to a few people in a room hearing from someone they trust.
The US Postal Service starts delivering census surveys in March 2010. Between May and July, census takers will visit homes that did not return questionnaires.
To add a comment, please register or login.