Congress worried coronavirus pandemic will hurt Census effort to count POC

A count of blacks, Latinos and AAPIs was going to be difficult but members of Congress fear that the coronavirus pandemic will further hamper an accurate count of these historically underserved communities.  

The Tri-Caucus Chairs and Native American Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Deb Haaland,  have sent a letter Tuesday (Aprill 12) to Census Bureau Director Dr. Steven Dillingham, asking for meetings between the Bureau and Congress to get answers to their concerns about how census operations are addressing  the impact of COVID-19 on their goals.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was already widespread concern that communities of color would be undercounted in the 2020 Census, as they have been in all past decennial censuses,” the members wrote. 

“The pandemic has since then added unprecedented barriers to the enumeration of all Americans and early analysis of the response rates of the 2020 Census show that these barriers are disproportionally impacting communities of color and immigrant communities.”

The letter was signed by Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Joaquin Castro, Texas; Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Judy Chu, Calif.; Congressional Native American Caucus Co-Chair Deb Haaland, New Mexico; andCBC Census 2020 Task Force Chair Steven Horsford Nevada, all of whom are Democrats.

"Available data suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has created both a public health and economic crisis that is disproportionately impacting communities of color," reads the letter.

Many Asian American communities are particularly vulnerable to an undercount because, in part, Asians are the only racial group in the US that is composed of a majority of people -- 59 percent -- who were born in another country, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center report. 

Historically, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities have been undercounted, resulting in missed federal funding for the states and counties in which they reside impacting their communities with the loss of programs that benefit schools, hospitals, local transportation, public works and more. 

Many of the new immigrants -- legal or undocumented -- may still harbor distrust of government intentions considering the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies being pushed by the current administration.

The help respondents, the Census is providing assistance online or by phone in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. The Census Bureau has printed visual language guides available in 59 language options and video guides to completing the Census online in 63 languages.”

A California statewide network of 12 Asian American and Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander-serving (AANHPI) community-based nonprofits are conducting in-language outreach in 25 languages which in addition to those previously listed, also include Bengali, Burmese, Hindi, Hmong, Iu-Mien, Khmer, Lao, Marshallese, Samoan, Punjabi, Thai, Tongan, Urdu, Vakaviti, Chamorro, and English. 

In addition to in-language resources, the network’s outreach efforts include community education, coalition building, digital media efforts and social media outreach with heavy emphasis on digital content given the cancellation of community events, in-person gatherings, and sponsored activations to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Some community groups have put out their own outreach materials, such as this video Produced by Next Day Better: 

Among the questions the Democratic lawmakers seek answers to is how the Census field operations will be conducted if the expected second wave of the coronavirus arrives later this summer or in the fall?

Also, in the past, after a household fails to answer the Census questionnaire, Census workers will go door-to-door. However, under the guidelines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, this strategy could be curtailed. The congressmembers ask in their letter what measures the Census would implement to count the household residents.

"Well-informed political, policy, and business decisions will be critical to helping communities of color recover from the lingering impact of the crisis and ensuring that our communities have the resources they need to build up resiliency against future pandemics. An undercount in the 2020 Census could set our communities back for the decade to come," continues the letter from the Tri-Caucus.

Full text of the letter can be found here.