February 11, 2000
by Louisa Ollague,
Regional Census Director, MALDEF
This Spring Latinos in this country will have the opportunity to participate in an historic event that affects everyone in the United States for the next 10 years. This event is the 2000 Census, which will be conducted in April 2000. Once every ten years the Census Bureau undertakes the monumental task of counting each and every person who lives in the United States, regardless of immigration status.
Census information is crucial for all Latinos
In 2000, the Latino community needs to have good answers to questions like: How many are we? Who are we? Where do we live? What languages do we speak? And most importantly: What do we need? The information collected will affect decisions such as where federal state funding is allocated, which services will be offered, and how communities will be politically represented. The Census Bureau estimates that the Latino community has reached a population of about 31 million. It is estimated that the number may reach 38 million during the next decade.
Organizations come together to encourage Latinos to get counted
Numerous organizations across the United States have joined forces to get the message out to the Latino community about the importance of the census. The National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP) is collaborating with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) to produce a series of articles for national distribution, which address important issues for Latinos regarding participation in the census. MALDEF's census outreach campaign entitled ¡Hágase Contar! Make Yourself Count! outreaches to Latinos all over the United States, prioritizing outreach to immigrants and other hard-to-reach groups. Many other organizations are involved in census issues on a national level, including the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Leadership Conference Educational Fund (LCEF).
Census Bureau demonstrates how census numbers affect our everyday lives
When Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida in 1992, for example, census information aided the rescue effort by providing relief workers with estimates of the number of people missing in each block, as well as detailed maps of whole neighborhoods that had been obliterated.
Senior citizen groups often draw on statistics from the census to support their desire for community centers. The census can demonstrate that the number of elderly residents near a proposed center are sufficient to merit the construction of a new senior center.
Census statistics help determine where to build more road (add lanes, install stoplights or lower speed limits, too), hospitals (or free health clinics) and childcare centers. They also help identify which communities need more federal help for job training, Head Start programs or the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program, which provides dairy and other nutritional supplements to new and nursing mothers and their children.
The census also provides the numbers to justify building more schools in communities. For instance, in Los Angeles, over 53,000 children were not counted in the 1990 census and the result was that over 70 schools that might have been constructed if the numbers had been correct were, in fact, not build. This phenomenon repeated itself all over the country.
Accurate numbers equal money and power for our communities
The impact of an accurate count translates into money and power. Each and every community needs to ensure complete participation in order to achieve the economic prosperity and political equity they deserve. And remember... all individual information is kept strictly confidential by law, so there is no reason not to participate. If we're not counted, it's as if we didn't exist ¡Hágase Contar! Make Yourself Count! in April 2000.
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