The United States Census Bureau put out a 165-page report today called “2020 Census Barriers, Attitudes, and Motivators Study (CBAMS) Focus Group Final Report.” Basically, it’s about people who don’t want to fill out their census forms. The main reasons found were privacy concerns, apathy, fear of repercussions, and lack of time. The report is full of the focus groups they studied, including African American, Native American, Hispanic, Chinese, middle-eastern, rural, and on and on. However, it appears that the one group not included is the “two or more races” group—the biracial and multiracial people. It would appear that either the multiracial community is just fine with filling out their census forms or they just don’t exist to the federal government. You decide.
Comments by Susan Graham for Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally)
Fall, 2018 National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations Meeting
November 2, 2018
The Casey Foundation’s 2018 KIDS COUNT® Data Book warns that the 2020 census is mired in challenges that could shortchange the official census count by at least two million kids younger than age 5. This discrepancy would also put hundreds of millions of federal dollars at risk and, in doing so, underfund programs that are critical for family stability and opportunity; essential programs like housing, food, education, and healthcare.
As we all know, the Casey Foundation gets its numbers from the Census Bureau. Federal dollars seem to be the focus, but can we put the money aside for the moment? Yes, it’s important to be counted for the money, redistricting and civil rights enforcement, but it’s also critical to focus on identity. It’s crucial to see your race(s) or the races of your children on news stories, pie charts, forms, data reports, and anywhere other races are included. Also, you can’t keep accurate records if you don’t have an accurate representation of someone, including their racial identity.
Let me give you some reminders about identity. First, when a multiracial person is asked about their identity it sounds like this: What are you? In his book The Lies that Bind, Kwame Appiah makes these observations, “In sum, identities come, first with labels and ideas about why and to whom they should be applied. Second, your identity shapes your thoughts about how you should behave; and third, it affects the way other people treat you. Finally, all these dimensions of identity are contestable, always up for dispute: who’s in, what they’re like, how they should behave and be treated.”
One example from the 2018 KIDS COUNT Data Book is this:
In 2017, 81 percent of African-American,
79 percent of American Indian, 78 percent
of Latino and 60 percent of multiracial
fourth-graders were not proficient in reading,
compared with 54 percent of white and 44
percent of Asian and Pacific Islander students.
They used the appropriate, preferable, and respectful term “multiracial.” The Census Bureau calls us “Two or More Races” people. The Casey Foundation counted and published the multiracial numbers. Not all entities do. Why is this important? Just as it’s important to see the African-American, American Indian, Asian, white, and Latino students, it’s crucial that multiracial families and individuals see themselves included in data. Proper racial nomenclature is critical, this has been proven over and over again every time a group, any group, changes its label.
The multiracial community has been invisible to this committee, the Census Bureau, and the government for far too long. We know it and you know it. We can only assume that you are not eager to have people check two or more races because it would benefit your groups to have our numbers. We are not willing to choose single race over multiracial just so your groups can benefit monetarily.
Now we are looking at the 2020 Census and how we can all shore up our numbers. We must all answer this question: how does filling out the race boxes on the census impact our groups? For the multiracial population, it’s really not a matter of money. No one is going to give dollars to feed little multiracial children based on the boxes they check. However, we need to accurately report growth in our numbers and demonstrate that the multiracial population is an important one. WE ARE ASKING TO BE INCLUDED WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT, TALK ABOUT, AND WRITE ABOUT RACES IN AMERICA.
The multiracial population is, perhaps, the largest of the hard-to-count groups by virtue of the fact that few care if we are counted as multiracial except us. In a recent webinar, census consultant Terri Ann Lowenthal was asked if people have to respond to every question, including race, when filling out their census form online. She answered that they do not. They can “hit submit and it will be accepted.” We would hate to see interracial families and multiracial individuals skip the race question. We need your help to ensure that this does not happen.
This is a time of suspicion, particularly between minorities and government. We can only get past that for the 2020 Census by showing trust. Project RACE has proven that we are a trusted entity for the multiracial population, but this committee, the bureau, and government need to show us that we can trust you. We are open to working with you to ensure that there is not an undercount of the multiracial community. We sincerely hope that you are finally ready to say the same. Thank you.
Project RACE received an email from the Census Bureau today with the subject: UPDATE ON 2020 CENSUS QUESTIONS ON RACE AND ETHNICITY. The Office of Management and Budget was supposed to issue their guidelines for the 2020 Census prior to 2018 and they did not. A variety of changes were proposed. Therefore, the bureau will utilize the following for the 2018 Census Test in Providence County, Rhode Island and most likely follow through with them on the 2020 Census:
A separate category for ethnicity and race will remain the same. A combined format will not be utilized. The two-question format remains.
Multiple Hispanic ethnicities such as Mexican and Puerto Rican will be collected with a write-in area.
Examples of races will be expanded for the White, Black, and American Indian or Alaska Native racial categories.
The term “Negro” will be removed.
A separate “Middle Eastern or North American” (MENA) category will not be utilized.
The OMB standards state that respondents should be offered the option of reporting more than one race.
The term “multiracial” will not be used.
When the two questions are collected separately, ethnicity should be collected first.
An individual’s responses to the race and ethnicity questions are based upon self-identification.
A sample of the Census questionnaire for the race and ethnicity questions can be viewed at this link:
Project RACE has worked as closely as possible with Census Bureau personnel on the race and ethnicity questions for each decennial census since the 1990 Census. We had hoped for inclusion of the respectful and appropriate terminology of “multiracial” on government forms. Instead, the multiracial population is referred to as “two or more races” people. Our needs were not served in this area and we are disappointed in the Census Bureau representatives from the top levels to staff personnel. We also remain completely unsatisfied with the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations (NAC) for their choosing to not have representation by the multiracial community. We call for a change in leadership on the NAC prior to the 2020 United States Census. Without better representation, we risk a tremendous undercount of the multiracial population in 2020 and beyond.
The Trump administration also announced today that they requested a question about citizenship status on the census, which is controversial. It is under legal review. The Census Bureau must decide by March 31 if it will include the question.
Project RACE has made amazing progress in our past 28 year history. We remain the only national organization advocating for multiracial people. We have gained the ability to choose more than one race on federal agency forms, state and local questionnaires, medical and business forms and much more. Project RACE was also responsible for ending “eyeballing” and third party identification with vitally important self-identification and positive self-reporting guidelines.
We have been very vocal in Washington in spite of efforts to minimize the multiracial community. Project RACE has also weighed in on several other issues such as a combined format and a MENA category for Middle Eastern and North African people. We remain committed to helping other communities receive fair treatment in advocating for their particular racial and ethnic identities. We are hopeful that future administrations will show sensitivity toward all racial and ethnic populations.
I read a review of Real American: A Memoir by Julie Lythcott-Haims in The New York Times yesterday. It said Julie Lythcott-Haims’ new memoir is about growing up biracial. It’s not. It’s about growing up black.
If you want to get really angry, read this book. In fact, it should be required reading for anyone even thinking about being in an interracial relationship and especially parents of multiracial children. In so many ways, it’s a primer on what not to do. To me, as the mother of multiracial children—now adults—it is reassuring that I raised them to embrace their entire heritage.
Lythcott-Haims claims early in the book that her parents had entered into some type of “interracial child experiment that was failing.” Experiment? Would people actually do that? Throughout the book, the author lashes out at her parents—mostly her mother—for any number of ways they let her down and made her identify as black, but in other places, she is proud of her black identity. It’s confusing.
What is very clear is that this biracial woman felt she had to make a choice. She is crazy angry at everyone and everything, yet she doesn’t get that she could have embraced all of her incredibly stunning heritage and, perhaps, celebrated that. No, being biracial is not just a way to acknowledge her white mother, as she says; it is a way of acknowledging herself. She just couldn’t get there.
It angers me that this author didn’t do her homework. She glosses over the entire multiracial movement with an offhand comment about the Census Bureau making “new terms” in the 1990s, as if it was their idea and not that of the many parents who led the action to get the government to even consider counting people as more than one race. We were everywhere and I find it amazing that an interracial family would have been hiding under a rock big enough to miss it entirely.
The author is completely preoccupied with the color of her children, who she refers to as “quadroon children,” “Black,” and “mulatto.” To her, they are more colors than people, which I just don’t understand. That she is angry at the plight of black people in America and all over the world, is obvious—I’m just as angry about it! She would say that wasn’t possible because I’m not black. Not true. Black lives matter to me, too. Multiracial lives matter to me, as well.
Much of what Lythcott-Haims is trying to say is that what matters is how other people see you. If they see you as black, you are black. As my son told congress, it is how he sees himself that matters. Does he know other people see him as black? Absolutely. Interracial families are not blind and stupid. We teach our children about all of their cultures and how people might look at them and classify them on their personal color scale. We get it; we live it, too.
The one thing the author and I agree on is that racism will never go away and that is why everyone needs to read about those of us who have been through it. You’ll have to read about both sides, search your heart, make your own decisions, and neither the author nor I can make it for you. I respect that you may choose for your children to identify as only one race. I just wish more people would respect that they may choose to be multiracial.
LOS ANGELES — Participation in the 2020 Census will play a critical role in guiding the distribution of billions of dollars in annual federal spendingome community leaders are acting now to encourage as many people as possible to take part, because budget limits and modernization efforts may create problems for respondents as well as information collectors in 2020.
“I am, personally, worried that there’s not going to be enough dollars for the partnership, multilingual media and outreach that needs to be done for our hard-to-count communities,” California Census Coordinator and chair for the committee advising the Census Bureau on race and ethnicity, Ditas Kitague, told the INQUIRER.net following a panel discussion in Los Angeles hosted by New America Media on Friday, October 6.
Privacy worries
Aside from language barriers, Kitague shared anecdotal reports of growing privacy concerns fueling apprehensions about census participation. Ironically, she noted that some people freely divulge more about themselves via social media than they would on a census form.
In light of the executive branch’s hardline stance on immigration, immigrant communities may be especially hesitant to hand personal information over to the government, according to Stewart Kwoh, president and executive director of the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles (AAAJ-LA),
“A number of immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, really are afraid of government, so to have them fill out census information is not easy,” said Kwoh during a phone call with the INQUIRER on Thursday, October 12. “I think r community leaders and legal experts need to provide confidence and vital information.”
Data can’t be used vs. respondents
Kwoh and Kitague pointed out that federal law prohibits private data collected by the Census Bureau from being published or used in legal proceedings against respondents. Kwoh added that groups like AAAJ-LA would be prepared to challenge any unfair use of census information against immigrant communities.
Census-based data derived from people’s responses will be used to direct several hundred billion dollars in federal spending.
“It affects the schools, hospitals, the road repairs that you get,” said Kitague. “These are real impacts on your community.”
The George Washington Institute of Public Policy (GWIPP) reports that in 2015, the distribution of nearly $312 billion to Medicaid and over $64 billion to Medicare relied on census-derived data.
Decisions based on census information also guided the allocation and use of almost $13 billion in Title I education grants, $11 billion in special education programs and $8 billion in funding for Head Start programs for children under 5.
Key in redistricting
Census data are also essential to the redistricting process, which decides how many congressional seats each state gets.
An accurate snapshot of the American population may be especially valuable in the face of shifting national demographics.
The Pew Research Center (PRC) reports that the Asian American and Pacific Islander population grew by 72% between 2000 and 2015, exhibiting the highest growth rate among major ethnic groups in the country.
Meanwhile, Latino communities have been growing steadily for several decades and are projected to make up 24% of the U.S. population by 2065.
In addition, the PRC predicts that the working-age population in the United States would shrink without future immigration.
Far-reaching ramifications
If those changes remain consistent in 2020 Census data, it could have far reaching ramifications for immigrant communities, according to Kitague and others conducting outreach for census participation.
“If we do get an accurate count, it will probably show that the AAPI community is growing,” said Kitague. “Not getting the AAPI community to respond accurately [means] we can lose political representation.”
People working to promote an accurate census are cautiously optimistic that they will be able to overcome a number of obstacles. However, the U.S. Census Bureau (USCB) is confronted by cost constraints, uncertainties surrounding untested tools and a leadership vacuum at the top of the organization as it prepares for 2020.
Cost worries
On Thursday, October 12, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross reportedly told members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the Census would cost $15 billion, 25 percent more than what had been initially predicted by the USCB. He asked Congress for an additional $3.3 billion in “urgently needed” funding.
Budget restrictions have already delayed testing for paperless collection methods and other updates intended to save the Bureau money and reach more people.
Meanwhile, in California, preparations for census support operations are lagging behind a state recommended timeline, according to the Manager of Political Voice for the advocacy group Advancement Project California (APCA), Dr. John Dobard. However, he said that outreach efforts are in better shape now than they had been leading up to the 2000 and 2010 census.
“Compared to what’s been done in the past, the state is early. But, based on the recommended timeline from the California Complete Count Committee in 2010, the state is behind,” said Dobard on Friday, October 6. “We’re not where we ideally should be, but there is still time to do things right.”
A census bureau worker in Houston in 2010.Credit Johnny Hanson/Houston Chronicle, via Associated Press
An administration uninterested in staffing federal agencies, at war with facts and eager to help Congress cut the budget is further endangering a cornerstone of American democracy: the duty to count all who live here.
Every decade since 1790, as required by the Constitution, the federal government has undertaken a painstaking census of its people, the accuracy and fairness of which serves the interests of both political parties and of every citizen. The decennial count is used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives and set the boundaries of congressional districts. It determines how tens of billions of dollars in federal aid are divvied up.
The Government Accountability Office already put the 2020 census on its list of high-risk projects early this year, due to uncertainty about its budget and technology, and Americans’ increasing distrust of government data collection.
Then, the Census Bureau’s director, John Thompson, who was expected to remain on the job until at least the end of the year, resigned in June. Mr. Trump has not named a permanent replacement. The agency’s deputy director, Nancy Potok, an experienced statistician, left in January, and she also has not been replaced.
Responses to mail-in questionnaires — still the chief data collection method for the census — and door-to-door interviews have been declining for years, a G.A.O. report said.
The bureau hopes to bolster its door-to-door “clipboard” force by automating the force’s work and introducing online reporting. But there’s not much money to test whether the approach actually works on the census: The bureau scrapped three field tests slated for this year, and two more for next year, including tests among rural people, who are traditionally one of the most seriously undercounted populations. There’s also less money to protect the online system from hacking of the kind that crashed Australia’s online count last year.
The census has always been vulnerable to political attack, and is especially so now. In 2009, Tea Party conservatives in the House tried unsuccessfully to kill off the bureau’s annual American Community Survey, a continuing tracking of respondents’ occupations, education, homeownership and other topics, as a supposed intrusion on privacy. A joint study by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution this year calls the survey data “indispensable” in helping local governments plan.
Mr. Trump poses an additional threat: His repeated efforts to discredit voter registration data and government employment numbers leave census officials worried that a random tweet from him could discourage more people from participating. Census professionals worry that the administration’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants could make them wary of providing information about themselves and where they live.
The census is the federal government’s chief source of data about the American people and economy, a sweeping endeavor. “If you don’t do the investment at the front end, you can’t fix it later,” says Max Stier, chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan advocate for a more effective federal government.
The census begins on April 1, 2020, and it must be completed in the summer for congressional reapportionment and redistricting to take place. Any failure would be immediately apparent — and it would tar Republicans at the height of the 2020 primary campaign season. Perhaps that reality will help inspire congressional leaders to support an accurate count, demonstrating to Americans that, even in the age of Trump, facts matter.
California would be the primary victim in a GOP war on the census
The 2020 census is headed for a debacle, and California is among the states most likely to be victimized by it.
Every 10 years, the Constitution requires the federal government to “enumerate” the nation’s residents. The count — traditionally accomplished by mailed questionnaires and house visits — determines political apportionment and the allocation of federal funds for the next decade.
The problems faced by the 2020 census begin with its unrealistically low budget. At mostly Republican insistence, it is set at the same level as the 2010 census budget, so it doesn’t account for a decade’s worth of inflation, or for population growth — and there will be an estimated 25 million more people in the U.S. by 2020. On top of that, the Census Bureau is using new technology to reduce door-to-door counting, and thanks to the bureau’s meager funding, it is far behind on testing it.
The 2020 census’ predicament is dire enough that in February, the Government Accountability Office added the census to its “high-risk list” of vulnerable agencies and programs. Then in June, the Census Bureau’s director abruptly resigned without explanation. Strong leadership in the buildup to a census is vital, but the Trump administration still has not named a successor.
Fourth of July Facts from our Friends at the Census Bureau
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. This most American of holidays will be marked with typical festivities ranging from fireworks, parades and concerts to more casual family gatherings and barbecues across the country. As we celebrate this Independence Day, we reflect on how our Founding Fathers enshrined the importance of statistics in our Constitution as a vital tool for measuring our people, places and economy.
Census Director John H. Thompson Abruptly Quits People-Counting Agency
byASSOCIATED PRESS
Census Bureau Director John H. Thompson was expected to leave the agency at the end of the year but instead will depart June 30, according to a government statement. Thompson said he is pursuing “opportunities in the private sector.””Your experience will be greatly missed,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in the same statement.
Census Director John Thompson poses for a portrait in this undated handout image. U.S. Census
Thompson testified to a House committee last week that the 2020 Census was on track. Members of the panel expressed concern about the escalating costs and overruns of the decennial accounting exercise mandated by the Constitution. The 2010 Census was the costliest U.S. Census in history, at about $12.3 billion, Robert Goldenkoff, strategic issues director for the Government Accountability Office. Thompson, who was confirmed to his post in 2013, told the same panel that the cost of the 2020 Census will cost about $12.5 billion.
Some of the increased projection is the result of modernizing the counting process, Goldenkoff said.
Asked whether Secretary Wilbur Ross or Trump himself had asked Thompson to step down, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said by email: “He’s simply retiring from public service. He spent 30 years in public service and 10 in the private sector.”
The Census, conducted every 10 years since 1790, is critical to determining how to run the country as it grows and diversifies. Beyond government spending, the private sector also uses demographic information collected in the enumeration.
The U.S. recently surpassed 325 million people. By 2044, whites are expected to become a minority. In 2020, the questionnaire is expected to include a new classification for Americans who are of Middle Eastern descent.
The director is nominated by the president for a five-year term and confirmed by the Senate.
At their request, I have a conference call with Census Bureau folks on Friday. Email me if you have any questions you would like me to ask them. Thanks. -Susan Graham susangraham@projectrace.com
