The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Making the Count Right: Achieving an Accurate 2010 Census for Underrepresented Communities

This conference call was held by LCCREF on March 24, 2009, as part of our national conference call series, Calling for Justice.

On the call to discuss the upcoming 2010 census were:

• Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR)
• Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO)
• Terry Ao, director of census and voting programs at the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC)
• Terri Ann Lowenthal, a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund consultant for the Census Project
• Ellen Buchman, vice president for field operations at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) 

It was an important and robust conversation about the opportunities and challenges we face to make certain we have a fair and accurate census - one that will ensure equal representation and equal access for all Americans.

Listen to an audio recording of the call (wav), or view the transcript below.

Transcript

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund conference call "Achieving an Accurate 2010 Census for Underrepresented Communities." It is my pleasure to introduce Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who will moderate this session. Mr. Henderson.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Wade Henderson and I'm the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nations oldest and largest and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, with over 200 national organizations working to advance civil and human rights.

I'm pleased to welcome you to Calling for Justice, our conference call series for national, state and local leaders to discuss and collaborate on timely civil rights issues. We're excited to have over 150 activists and leaders in the civil rights community from all over the country joining us to discuss the upcoming 2010 census.

Now, because the accuracy of the census directly affects our nation's ability to ensure equal representation and equal access to important governmental services for all, ensuring a fair and accurate census count is one of the most significant civil rights and equal rights issues facing the country today. That is why as we approach April 1, 2009 - the year-out mark for the 2010 census - we'll discuss the issues at hand for underrepresented communities with the 2010 census and what we can do as leaders to help make this census accurate and successful.

Now, on this call we will hear from Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials; Terry Ao, the director of census and voting programs at the Asian American Justice Center; and Terri Ann Lowenthal, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund's consultant for the Census Project.

We'll then hear from Ellen Buchman, the vice president for field operations at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, about what you can do to help educate your community and take action to prepare for the upcoming census. If time allows, we'll take questions at the end.

Now a quick housekeeping note: this call is being recorded. You'll find instructions on how to access the recording, as well as a transcription of the call, in a follow-up email.

Now, it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, to provide a brief history of the census and its civil rights implications. By the way, Arturo, great job today in the "Washington Post." Your quote was right on time. Now, ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming Arturo Vargas.

Arturo Vargas, NALEO: Good afternoon, or good morning, and greetings from Los Angeles.

A quick background on the NALEO Educational Fund. We are a national nonprofit organization and our mission is to incorporate Latinos into the American political system from citizenship to public service, and it is because of that mission that the census is absolutely core to the work that we do. In fact, the census is really core to the work that any civil rights organization undertakes.

The origins of the census is really the foundation of our democratic form of government. We remember American history with the 13 colonies trying to figure out how to govern themselves, and there was this great compromise for every state would get two senators and every state would get a number of members of Congress according to their population. In order to determine that, there needed to be a count of every state to determine how many members of Congress each state will get. That is the fundamental purpose of the census.

Yet in the census is also this nation's legacy of racism and iniquity, because it was in the census that certain residents of this country were determined to be less than a full person or less than human.

We remember the Three-Fifths Compromise, where slaves were not considered to be full persons for purposes of the census. They are only 3/5ths of a person. Natives to this country - Native Americans - some of them were not even considered persons at all and not counted at all in the census. That has been corrected over time with amendments to our constitution, and full enfranchisement, and the abolition of slavery. But nonetheless, the legacy of racism and exclusion persists, which was one reason there has always been a historical undercount of populations such as African Americans, Native Americans and in other populations like Asian Americans and Latinos as well.

Yet also in the census is the potential and the promise of equity and fairness because with a full census comes the potential for full representation or accurate representation in the Congress and for all the other purposes that data are used - to redistribute political power, for redistricting, and the census data today are also used for the distribution of about $1 trillion of public funds to the states and localities.

In essence, every single person in this country is a walking price tag for their community. They can bring in revenue to their community for everything from public education to infrastructure development, the kind of funds that we have seen created in the stimulus bill. And for every person missed, not only is that person not being counted for purposes of representation, but every person missed represents lost resources to their community.

This year, to enumerate our population we face greater challenges than ever before, certainly greater than in 1990 or 2000.

We have a much more diverse population. We have a larger immigrant population which is traditionally undercounted. The absence of a comprehensive immigration reform legislation means that there will persist a large share of the immigrant population which is living in the shadows, and it will be difficult to reach them and to convince them to fill out forms and report themselves to the Federal Government, which is in essence what the census is.

And there has been a significant impact among hard-to-count communities caused by the recession.

To give you an example, we know that many households - homeowners - traditionally are likely-to-count populations. If you own a home, you are likely to be a stakeholder and be counted.

We know many people in the African American, Latino and immigrant communities have lost their homes due to the subprime mortgage crisis and foreclosure crisis. These people have been moved from the likely-to-be-counted column to the hard-to-count column, and with people losing their jobs and losing their homes, they have become more marginalized from society.

We don't know where the people are moving to. They may be doubling up in other homes. They may be sharing apartments with other families because they cannot afford to make ends meet, yet we have to reach out and count these people.

There are also structural barriers to the way the census is counted. It is conducted through the U.S. mail. So if you have an address, chances are you will receive the census form. If you don't have a mailing address, you may not receive a census form. So we know that there are many people who live in housing situations without addresses: converted garages and illegal housing units, and many of those that do not appear on postal address rolls. Those people are in danger of not being counted.

People that live in large households may not be counted. The census form has room for about six people and sometimes households believe it means it is only information for the six people that is being required, and they leave off others. This is one of the reasons why children tend to be undercounted in the census, because often the head of the household begins enumerating, and starts listing the adults, and leaves off the children.

Another barrier that we are facing is sufficient hiring of cultural and linguistic enumerators and office managers to enumerate diverse populations throughout the country. We're not so worried necessarily of there being enough culturally- and linguistically-competent people in communities like San Antonio, Los Angeles or Chicago. Our biggest concern is areas where we have seen large and emerging immigrant populations where there currently doesn't exist a social services infrastructure to serve them, in the south - Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina - and areas of the midwest and northwest. These are communities where there may not be sufficient U.S. citizens who have the cultural and linguistic competency to help enumerate those populations - where we're asking the Census Bureau to implement waivers to allow them to hire work-eligible immigrants so they can be part of the workforce that needs to be enumerated.

There is great challenges ahead of us. There is much at stake in the census. And my colleagues will now continue to talk about where we are with regard to the state of play with the census. I will turn this conversation over to Terry Ao.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Arturo.

I'm going to introduce Terry. I want to introduce Terry Ao, the director of census and voting programs at the Asian American Justice Center, to tell us more about the state of play with the 2010 census. Welcome, Terry.

Terry Ao, AAJC: Thank you, Wade and thank you Arturo.

As you all know, census day is almost one year out, but the census has already begun and is moving forward on all cylinders, so I'm going to go through some dates and hopefully I won't speed through them too quickly, I wanted to give folks a sense of what it takes to pull this off and why it is important we're talking about it today and how we can be involved.

So Arturo talked about the importance of addresses, and it is certainly one of the key components to having an accurate count. I like to think of it as being critical to laying the foundation for an accurate count for the reasons he mentioned. In a week or so, the Census Bureau will send employees out to update address lists nationwide through address canvassing and to validate all addresses listed on maps. And this will be followed up in the fall and winter of this year with local and tribal governments submitting evidence of newly built housing units for inclusion in the census.

I want to reiterate the importance of this because of the fact that if the address does not show up on the address list, it will not receive a census form, and the Census Bureau will not realize it is missing a response. So nobody will follow up in the nonresponse follow-up period, and, in essence, it really means that that household will not be counted. And that is one of the reasons why it is so important for this piece to be done and to be done right.

Another important component of the 2010 census is communication and outreach efforts which have also already begun. The Bureau last year selected its communication contractor and conducted focus groups with some hard-to-count populations, and have since then copy edited - created copy edits - of potential advertisements. In February of this year, focus groups were conducted around the country on those copy edits to see how they resonated with people in these hard to count communities.

The Bureau will use some of the funding they received through the stimulus package to bolster its paid advertising efforts for the hard-to-count communities. Some questions were raised about the fact that its budget initially did not seem to adequately address the needs for the hard-to-count populations.

We know that they were looking at increasing the dollars spent for the Latino community by a mere 6% compared to what they spent in 2000, but we know that the Latino population has grown significantly more than that and the needs to reach those groups - you know, to reach those communities - are far exceeding the 6% increase. Equally disturbing was the fact that the Bureau had actually cut the budget for the Asian paid media by a third from what was spent in 2000, despite the fact that the community has also been growing at high rates and the diversity of the community ,as well as the language that is spoken and the increase in media outlets. So we hope that they will put this money in - that they have received - to help to bolster those efforts.

In October of 2009, the communication campaign will launch the 2010 census website, and the census and school materials will be used in the schools that fall. The paid advertisement campaign itself will be launched in January 2010 and will continue through June [2010].

The other key component of the outreach efforts by the Census Bureau is the partnership program, which has also begun. Partnership specialists have been hired and partners are signing up to participate.

The Bureau will be hosting a 2010 census national partners briefing in D.C. to kick off this program in the media on March 30th, 2009 - so next week. And the Bureau will also be using some of the funding through the stimulus package to hire more partners, specialists with the goal of tripling the number that they currently have, to try to make sure that these communities are appropriately serviced.

Actual census-taking will begin in January 2010, with the count beginning in remote Alaskan villages. February 2010, we'll see the opening of questionnaire assistance centers, and census questionnaires will be mailed to households in February to March of 2010.

Census day will occur on April 1st of 2010. And around that time we will also see service-based enumerations that will be conducted at places such as homeless shelters, soup kitchens and pre-identified outdoors locations, as well as counts of residents in group quarters such as military barracks, college dorms and prisons.

Once the forms have been sent out, things will shift to the nonresponse follow-up phase for those households that do not mail their forms back. Late April through early July 2010, census takers will visit most of the households that have not responded by mailing back the census forms.

Finally, the Census Bureau delivers the data on December 31st, 2010 - the state population total - to the President, along with the resulting apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives, and then the complete delivery of redistricting data to the states will be completed by March 31st, 2011.

As you can see, the census-taking process is complex and time consuming. And I think that one of the things that we need to keep in mind is that currently we don't have a permanent census director. The funding issues for the Census Bureau are always tricky. We want to make sure that the Census Bureau is adequately funded to do what it needs to do when it needs to do it.

As I mentioned, the census has started and if we're not involved now, I think we really will miss the proverbial train on this issue and we risk an inaccurate count which tends to undercount the communities that we serve. This will result in missed opportunities for political representation and funding for needed services.

Additionally, we will be hindering our ability to adequately serve our communities, as we will not have the tools effectively and efficiently to determine how to spend our scarce resources to help our communities.

We need to be actively involved to make sure that we're doing our part to reach our constituents and educate them on the importance of this issue, to lend our name to the cause as trusted leaders in our communities, and to engage our community members to participate in many ways, including filling out their census forms, but also to apply for jobs as partnership specialists or enumerators, particularly those with language skills.

There are a number of ways that organizations could get involved. You could become a 2010 census partner through the Census Bureau 2010 census partnership program, and organizations can utilize their newsletters and listserves to build awareness and communicate the importance of participating in the 2010 census to their constituents.

Organizations can also include census workshops in any annual conferences or conventions that they are either hosting or participating in from other groups. Organizations that have ethnic media contacts should certainly reach out, particularly those with language capabilities - but really just talking to the media generally is also very important to make sure that everybody understands the importance of participating in the census.

And finally, organizations utilizing these same avenues of communication to help advertise for jobs, as mentioned previously, to community members. This will be particularly important to being able to hire a diverse job force that has multilingual abilities. I think I'll stop there now, Wade, so we have plenty of time for questions and answers.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Terry.

I now want to introduce Terri Ann Lowenthal, who is the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund's consultant on the Census Project, to provide us with some best practices as well as challenges that we face with this 2010 census. Welcome, Terri Ann.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, Census Project: Thank you very much, Wade. I'm so happy to participate in this very important teleconference call to action.

At this time, I want to take a few minutes to fill in a few policy and operational issues and to add to the important information that Terry and Arturo offered to the listeners, and that some of the listeners might wonder about if they stay abreast of news campaigns about the census. And I'm going to boil down my points to a classical Clint Eastwood movie, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," a movie - but I'm going to try it in reverse order so we can end on a positive note.

Let's start with the ugly - two points to address. One is partisan politics, and the other is the economy.

Now, the political controversy de jure - whether the Obama White House will somehow exercise partisan influence over the census and bypass the Commerce Department's role in overseeing the Census Bureau - I think is a red herring. The administration's critics - just this week - have also raised another concern that so-called liberal organizations will somehow find a way to manipulate the census count by adding nonexisting people to the census.

None of those concerns have any grounding in history or fact, and I think these accusations are an effort to distract the public's attention from the genuine challenges the Census Bureau faces heading into 2010.

There are a number of troubling factors that have put the 2010 census on the high-risk list of both the Government Accountability Office and the Commerce Department's Inspector General. All of these factors are due - in at least some part - to decisions made during the previous administrations.

There is an underfunded paid-media campaign and partnership program, a failed information technology contract that has forced the Census Bureau to throw out its playbook very late in the game. There is continued uncertainty about the performance capabilities of the new technology that is being used. And there has been a significant turnover of senior staff in the census chain of command.

The White House has issued several assurances that the census director, whenever he or she is appointed, will report directly to Secretary of Commerce-to-be Gary Locke, but the White House itself will maintain an interest in ensuring the most accurate count possible.

And I think that's a good thing because I think that we all should hope that the President gets involved in the 2010 census. We should hope the President energizes and mobilizes Americans to participate in the census the way he energized and mobilized people during the campaign in a way we have not seen in decades.

And I hope the President uses his bully pulpit to spark a higher level of engagement in the nation's civic life because the fact of the matter is that many of people who were not engaged in campaigns, elections and voting before this past year are the same people who are more likely to be missed in the census. And so we all need to join the President in building public confidence about this census and in persuading all Americans to participate.

On the economy, Arturo Vargas did a great job at expressing some of our concerns about the effects of the economic downturn on the Census Bureau's ability to produce an accurate count, and so I will just simply add that I share that concern, that a growing displacement of people due to job losses and home foreclosures, and loss of homes and abandonment of entire neighborhoods, really could pose multiple challenges to traditional counting efforts.

I'm not yet confident that the Census Bureau has developed adequate strategies to count people and families displaced from their homes or those facing the prospect of losing their homes and possessions - you know, families are who are doubled up with relatives and other friends, or those living in motels, people who are living in tent cities, and families that are afraid to open the door to a stranger lest it be a marshal serving a foreclosure notice.

So I think everyone on this call needs to help the Census Bureau with both the communications and counting strategy to reach these segments of the population that do not fit neatly, if at all, into the current enumeration plans.

Now, on to the bad, not quite as bad as the ugly. Two points again: leadership and preparation.

Terry Ao mentioned that the Census Bureau does not have a director. Even when the ship is sailing with a competent and creative crew as the Census Bureau staff is, the ship is likely to drift if the captain's chair is empty. There is a universal agreement the President must name a new census director quickly, someone to set priorities and make difficult decisions, to ensure that the billions of dollars being spent on the census is allocated wisely, and to carry the banner of this civic celebration out to the American public. So I hope we all say a collective prayer that the President nominates an experienced director soon.

With regard to preparation, according to the Government Accountability Office, there are several major operational and processing systems for the next census that have not been - and may not be - fully tested before the census starts. I'm somewhat taken aback, frankly, by the breadth of testing that has yet to be done. It leaves the potential for system failures higher than in recent decades and I hope Congress continues to monitor the final planning and preparations very closely.

And finally, I will close with the good. A couple of bright spots, factors that I think are key to overcoming these significant challenges going into the next census.

One is funding. Terry Ao mentioned funding. There has been underfunding of census preparations up until this point but fortunately the Census Bureau now has the money it needs this year, $2.7 billion for final 2010 census preparations to complete address canvassing, questionnaire printing, and carry out partnership activities. Fortunately, there is more money in the pipeline for this year, about $250 million in stimulus bill money to expand the partnership effort and increase paid media buys in hard-to-count communities.

The funding picture for 2010 is still a little fuzzy. We will all be watching closely as the administration releases in more detail a budget request in April. But the total amount of funds in the stimulus bill for 2010 census was $1 billion. And we hope that money will be in addition to all of the money the Census Bureau says it needs to carry out the count.

And finally, stakeholder support. What really does give me hope amid all of this uncertainty surrounding the census are the interest in efforts of groups like the Leadership Conference, like NALEO and the AAJC and the NAACP ,and everyone on this phone. It will be your voices, trusted voices of opinion leaders and gatekeepers at the national, state and local neighborhood levels, that will convince people of diverse cultural, linguistic, and economic backgrounds that it is safe and it is important to participate in the census.

There is a lot of work left to do and there is many challenges to overcome but I think together we can build on the momentum of a historic election to convince people who have been left out, decade after decade, in the census that this census is all about them. And that this is another chance to turn the tide of history and have everyone's voices heard. Thank you, Wade.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Terri Ann.

And now, last but not least I would like to introduce Ellen Buchman, vice president for field operations at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, who is going to tell us about three things we can all do to ensure the census is successful in 2010. Ellen.

Ellen Buchman, LCCREF: Thank you so much, Wade. It is wonderful to be here joining so many folks from around the country in this conversation and joining Arturo, Terry and Terri Ann, and, of course, Wade, who have provided us all a better understanding of the challenges, opportunities and history that undergirds the census, this important issue. As Wade said, I want to spend a few minutes on what you can do between now and April 1, 2010, to make an impact, a positive impact in your community through the census.

First, no matter where you are around the country, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund is working with folks all over the place, the following three tactics to get information out to the communities that we serve. So whether you're these folks who are on the phone: Anna Henderson from California, Derrek Johnson from Mississippi, Anita Earl from North Carolina, Helen Butler from Atlanta, or Paula Plasky from Wisconsin, and many, many more of you, we look forward to hearing from you in ways that you can opt in to our campaign.

Now onto the three things, and the first thing that you can do is to learn more. Our website provides a wide range of information from the basics like the 101 on what the census is, to more detailed information about what components of your community in particular are affected by the outcomes of the census. Over the course of the next year, more information will be added so that you can educate others in your community and grab materials that we will upload periodically throughout the year onto our site.

You can find this information at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund website which is www.civilrights.org/census. We'll send that link around in follow-up emails and throughout the course of the year.

Secondly, you can also help your community get ready for the upcoming census by both participating in and partaking in being a leader in our train-the-trainer program. And I should highlight right here that the person who is our point person, our field manager, is my colleague Catherine Montoya, who will join the line to take your questions about this and about our field campaign in general.

The train-the-trainer component of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund census program includes media skills training, instructions on how to help end users - people - fill out their census forms, helpful techniques for messaging and communities - and let me just say that it is our hope to work with, as Terri Ann mentioned, the neighborhood leaders, as well as the national leaders, to determine what those messages and effective messengers, are as well as during these conferences to help build campaign plans for community organizing and build out local coalitions to the extent that they need to be built out.

As you can imagine, these skills will not only help with the census work, but certainly overlap in many, many different areas of focus as well.

Again, let me just say - and she'll be on the line later, if you're interested in both participating in or being a leader in planning these regional events - and let me also just note that we do have limited resources to do so - Cathy Montoya is on the line, or let me encourage you to send an email directly to our field department at grassroots@civilrights.org, and we'll also follow up on this call by sending you the contact information as well.

Third and lastly, though certainly not least importantly, you can participate in the nationwide year-out national letter to the editor campaign, along with - as was mentioned earlier - many of the year-out lead-in efforts that are already going on. We at the Leadership Conference are asking people around the country, starting with this call, to submit their letter to the editor to local newspapers, blogs or other media outlets by Friday, March 30th, 2009. And I have been reminded by folks in our communication shop that these things really do need to be submitted by March 30th, so that the Wednesday, April 1st, mark is when they are picked up - and throughout that week.

It is important, as the census quickly approaches, to get the message out to our communities that are vital to the process, and that we explain in our own words how the census directly impacts the communities that we represent.

So we have got in our back pocket some template letters to the editor that we will make available to you all by providing a link so that you can download them. But we do encourage folks to personalize them to the best of your ability.

And we'll make sure that we play an active role in participating with you in doing so, and so, if you need help with submitting these letters, you should just let us know through the follow up email. Wade, I think that is it for now. I think now we should probably go into questions. Thank you so much.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Ellen.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, as time permits, we'll take questions from the queue as well as questions that were previously submitted by way of email. Operator, if you could please explain the queue at this time we would really appreciate it.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 01 on your keypad.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Operator. While the queue is being organized, I'm going to ask a previously submitted question. This comes from my colleague and friend, Joaquin G. Avila, Assistant Professor of Law at Seattle University's School of Law. His question relates to citizenship data and voting rights.

I ask and I quote, will the citizenship question be asked in the 2010 census, and if so, when will it be released and at what census geographic level?

Terri Ann, do you want to take that?

Terri Ann Lowenthal, Census Project: Certainly, Wade. The 2010 census will only involve what we fondly call the short form. Only seven questions, basic questions about a person's household, family members, and one question about their home, whether they own or rent will be asked in the 2010 census.

The former long form that went to a sample of the population - and did include a question on citizenship - is now being asked in what is called the American Community Survey, which is an ongoing continual survey reaching about 3 million households a year that collects important social and economic data about the nation's characteristics.

The data on citizenship, whether someone is a citizen or not, is now available for larger geographic areas, places of 20,000 population or more, and those data will be available down to the very small census-tract level starting in 2010, and then updated annually thereafter each year.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Terri Ann. Operator, is there a question in the queue?

Operator: Yes, there is. Our first question is going to be from Trap Bonner. Go ahead, please.

Trap Bonner: Yes, this is Trap from Moving Forward Gulf Coast in New Orleans. My question pertains to Hurricane Katrina diaspora residents and how they will be counted next April, whether they'll be counted as residents in the diaspora or counted as folks who still have residency in New Orleans, if you can understand what I'm saying.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Trap, thank you. That is a great question. I'm going to ask Terri Ann to try her hand at that again and then others if we need to expand.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, Census Project: Yes, Wade, I encourage my other colleagues on the phone to contribute as well. It is an excellent question and one that the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is very concerned about.

LCCR Education Fund is doing research on conditions in Gulf Coast areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent natural disasters and trying to assess how well current census operations will count those areas. However, the bottom line is that the Census Bureau will count people where they usually live on census day, which is April 1st, 2010. That means that people who have been displaced from the Gulf Coast areas and are living right now somewhere else will be counted where they are living. They will not be counted where they used to live because they have not returned home yet. That is a great concern.

I urge folks on this call to think about ways to convey their concern to the Census Bureau so that the Census Bureau can find a way, over time, to continue to capture the populations that are moving back into the Gulf Coast.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Terri Ann. Operator, do we have another question in the queue?

Operator: Yes, we do. Our next question is from Jaspreet Singh. Go ahead, please.

Jaspreet Singh: My name is Jaspreet Singh and I'm staff attorney for United Sikhs here in New York. I wanted to ask a question regarding what, more specifically, is going to be covered on the short form, and then also, you talked a little bit about some of the advertising that is going to be going out.

We have good outreach with Punjabi ethnic media, which is nationwide, as well as there is some access to TV which is also nationwide. It would be great if we could translate some of these things, and I don't know if they're doing translation for the Punjabi community but we would be willing to assist the Census Bureau in getting the advertisements placed. Is that something that would be within the ambit of a partnership, or how are they doing that?

Wade Henderson, LCCR: That is a great question, and a terrific offer of assistance. Let me ask our colleague, Terry Ao, of the Asian American Justice Center. Terry.

Terry Ao, AAJC: I certainly think that working with the Census Bureau partnership program is a great way - think that is a great way to get the information out, and to the extent that there are specific offers of assistance, you can certainly forward that along to us and we're happy to pass that along to the Bureau. I think that the Bureau unfortunately, with respect to language, they have some pieces in place including translated questionnaires, and there will be one bilingual in Spanish and English and translated questionnaires that people can fill out in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Russian. And there is a series of language-assistance guides that act as a sample questionnaire that you could lay side by side next to the English questionnaire.

I believe those guides will be translated into over 50 languages, or right around the 50 language mark. We can try to get that list of languages at that point in time. I certainly think that efforts - I believe that groups should definitely, when possible, offer to help, whether it is to translate or review translations, which will be key, because we know the quality of the translation is as important - if not more important - as the fact that the translation that is actually being done.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Terry. Operator, I think we'll take a previously submitted question. This comes from Mary Butler, a system change coordinator at the Ohio Statewide Independent Living Council.

Mary asks, how will the next census be more able to correctly count people who have disabilities, especially when so many seniors do not say they have a disability but they have a condition, an ailment or a little difficulty in doing something but they do not have a disability. I'm going to ask my friend Arturo Vargas to answer that question, and my other colleagues to join in if need be. Arturo.

Arturo Vargas, NALEO: Thank you, Wade. I'm not so sure I'm the best expert on this, but we do know this is one of the concerns we have with regard to how the census itself is conducted given that it is an enumeration of addresses. So one of the important things is to ensure that individuals with disabilities or with any conditions that they - given where their residents are - that they be in a location that can receive a census form.

It is also going to go to the enumeration of group quarters - where people who may live in either some kind of residences that include various populations with these kinds of characteristics - make sure that they are counted. I think Terri Ann may have greater insight on the enumeration for people with disabilities.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Terri Ann.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, Census Project: Thank you. I think Arturo addressed one important component of this which is to ensure that people with disabilities - whether they're living on their own or in what we call a group quarter facility, such as nursing home - are counted accurately in 2010.

The person who emailed might also be interested in how the Census Bureau will collect data on people with disabilities and how those people actually report their condition. As I mentioned earlier, that information about those personal characteristics is now collected in the ongoing American Community Survey. And those data are being published on an annual basis down to the neighborhood level as the years go on.

Some of the decisions on how somebody answers that question depends on how well people are educated, and so I do urge people who work with people with disabilities - help them understand why the American Community Survey, if they receive it, is important, and how best to answer the question that captures whether somebody may be disabled.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Terri Ann. Now, Operator, if we have another question in the queue we would be happy to take it.

Operator: Our next question is from Lucy Spool. Go ahead, Lucy.

Lucy Spool: My question was related to the one that was just answered from the individual with the Center for Independent Living. I wanted to ask what measures were being taken to make sure that individuals with disabilities who might live in a variety of group arrangements and might not have separate addresses actually get counted.

Now, I believe that question has been answered. But the question that the individual with the Center for Independent Living asked, I believe, is what we can do to write a better definition of a person with a disability because it is a self declaration. And as she said, there are many older Americans who do in fact have disabling conditions who don't identify themselves as such, so the number of people with disabilities in our communities is being undercounted. So a better definition or more positive definition of what the census means by a disability may be of help.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Terri Ann, why don't you try your hand at that. Thanks.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, Census Project: Certainly. This is an issue that is extremely important and has been discussed and continues to be discussed around many civil rights and advocates for the disability community. It does go directly to the issue of how the question on the American Community Survey is worded.

I would urge the callers and others who work with this community to reach out to the Census Bureau, and also to the appropriate congressional committees, to encourage further research and refinement of the American Community Survey questions on disability. The Census Bureau is right now doing research on whether any of the questions on the American Community Survey form need to be modified and this would be a good opportunity to be involved in that review and discussion.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Terri Ann. Operator, do we have any more questioners?

Operator: Yes. Our next question comes from Karla Lortz. Go ahead, Karla.

Karla Lortz: Yes, again I am concerned about the underrepresentation of people with disabilities in the count. I would just like to remind the other people on the call that, you know, within your particular ethnic populations you also have numbers of people with disabilities in that you need to be taking that into consideration when you do your outreach and counting as well.

The other thing I'm still concerned about whether, indeed, you know, people with disabilities will be accurately counted, primarily because of the concern the last caller talked about, and that is the definition of disability. You know, how the census will go about asking questions that will get to that issue. Does anyone have anything on that?

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Terri Ann, I think you're doing a great job. Would you stay with this question if you would, please.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, Census Project: I think with the interest of the number of callers, Wade, it demonstrates how important it is to reach out to many of the hard-to-count communities over the next year to emphasize the importance of participating in the census themselves, or if they're caring for someone who is disabled to make sure that that person answers the census.

The same goes for people who oversee nursing homes and other assistive-living facilities. They will work with the Census Bureau to make sure that everyone within their facility is counted.

With regard to the definition of disabled, again I just want to make clear that the census itself will not have a question about whether a person has a disability. That question is now included on the American Community Survey that about 3 million households a year will receive, and I know that LCCR and many other groups on the phone will continue to do education in the coming years about the importance of filling out not just the 2010 census form, but the American Community Survey, if your household is lucky enough to receive it.

Ellen Buchman, LCCREF: Wade, if I could interject another point on that. That is to say, in no means do we intend to leave out the disability community in the planning of our education efforts around getting an accurate count.

I just wanted to underscore that the local committees and the local institutions, whether it is the Independent Living Center's vast network or the American Association of People with Disabilities or groups that represent senior citizens both nationally and locally, we are interested in reaching out to leaders in this constituency so that we can get the most effective ways to educate folks and communities, and it is through our conferences and training effort that we intend to do so.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you. Operator, any additional questions?

Operator: Yes. Our next question comes from Ricardo Perez. Go ahead, please.

Ricardo Perez: Yes. I'm Ricardo Perez and I live in North Carolina. I'm a multicultural community advocate and I'm very, very supportive of the census and I understand how critical it is to the infrastructure and development of the United States.

In the year 2000, I was president of the North Carolina Hispanic Chamber of Congress, and I was very active on the Complete Count Committee for Wake County, and today we have folks depending on what estimates you go for - there are 12 to 20 million people in the United States without proper U.S. documentation. In North Carolina we have hundreds of thousands of people who are future citizens. They just don't have their citizenship papers today.

My comment right now is simply to urge everyone on this call to somehow get to your members of Congress - because if we don't pass some degree of comprehensive immigration reform or at least indicate to people in the United States that we're moving in that direction, the census for the year 2010 is going to fail in major locations across the United States.

I don't know if Mr. Vargas has a comment about that if the Hispanic Caucus is doing anything to try to help move that forward, and I don't want to make a debate about the immigration reform, but I want to urge everyone on the phone to know that is a concern.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: That is a great question and let me ask my friend to Arturo to respond.

Arturo Vargas, NALEO: Absolutely. The gentleman from North Carolina touched on a critical issue that will be affecting how well a count we can carry out in 2010. With the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, we will continue to have up to 12 million or more immigrants in a situation where they will have a reasonable fear of contact with the government that we will to have work collectively to convince them to overcome and to actually participate in the census.

We have heard recently some assurances from the President himself in a meeting he had with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he intends to make comprehensive immigration reform a priority this year. But we know that process can take months and months and the census is around the corner. I am not optimistic we will have a resolution to our immigration laws by April 2010, so that just places the onus us on all of us to work collectively to work with our immigrant communities and our organizations that serve them and trusted messengers to help convince this population that it is in everybody's interest that they be fully counted.

One of the strategies we're using with NALEO now is that we're continuing our campaign Ya es Hora - "it is time" - campaign. It was very effective in trying to capture the enthusiasm from the marches in 2006 where millions of immigrants were asking for justice and comprehensive immigration reform. We used that enthusiasm to convince up to 1.4 million people to apply for citizenship in '07 and encouraged citizens to vote in '08.

We continue with that messaging, so hopefully in 2010 tell everybody Ya es Hora. Hagase Contar. It is time. Make yourself count. That it resonates in the immigrant community. That being counted in the census is part and parcel of this empowerment movement we have been witnessing in the country in the immigrant community, that began with marching and extended into voting and comes back to an opportunity for everybody to participate - and that is to be counted - in the census.

That is our messaging strategy that we're doing in the Spanish language media, Univision, and inframedia on radio, television, and print, but the air campaign is going to have to be complimented with the mass mobilization of our communities to coordinate our immigrant communities to be counted in the census.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Arturo. I think, Operator, we have time for one last question. Anyone in the queue?

Operator: Yes. Our next question comes from Tracie Washington. Go ahead, please.

Tracie Washington: Hi, Wade. Thank you for taking the call. This is wonderful.

Let me just say this, one of the things I'm most concerned about - and we just got something emailed to us, advocates in Louisiana. It came from one of these advocacy groups, sort of a conservative group, discussing the fact that in Louisiana we would probably be losing a Congressional seat and therefore we need to be talking in terms of redistricting. Our big focus is redistricting.

I wanted to get from you, or hear from Leadership Conference - one, do you all have any talking points to address some of this - what I believe to be coming wholesale for the suppression of people wanting to be involved in a count - because if you send out stuff like this, saying basically you're going to lose a seat anyway, why get involved in the census? That is definitely going to suppress this count.

And two, our next step after this - because the census is sort of part one - the next big part is the whole redistricting issue. And so what do you have out there on your website, what are you anticipating as far as in the future talking points, things that we can use to talk back to these conservative communities or whatever communities I believe are sort of suppressing - trying to suppress - this count, and to next steps.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Miss Washington, that is a great last question. I'm going to ask my colleague, Ellen Buchman, to begin answering it and call on other speakers if they would like to embellish. Ellen.

Ellen Buchman, LCCREF: Certainly and thank you, Miss Washington, for the question.

In respect to talking points and push back on what I believe to be bait and switch tactics - tactics to lead folks to think about something else and in this case don't do it because it ain't worth it - as opposed to focusing on what we need to focus on, which is making sure that we ensure an accurate count.

I can assure you that on Civilrights.org/census we will make sure to put relevant talking points and materials, as well as during the conferences that I mentioned before that will identify frequently asked questions, which I believe may already even be up on the site - if they're not they will be there soon. And secondly, identify through the challenges that you have enumerated, and others undoubtedly cite for us, what are the things that we need to be on the lookout for, so that we can handle these sorts of things.

I think, Terry Ao, if you're still on may be able to talk about redistricting before your conclusion.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Terry.

Terry Ao, AAJC: I think, Ellen, you're right. It is difficult to say clearly. Redistricting is one of those issues that makes the census count so important, but at the same time it would be important not to get waylaid by the issue, because without an accurate count it kind of throws the whole redistricting process. I guess it turns it upside down on its head.

I think it is certainly something that we should keep our eye upon and should be able to react to but I don't know proactively how much should be working on it at this point. I don't know, Arturo may have a different opinion.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Arturo.

Arturo Vargas, NALEO: I think the speaker brought up an important point. I don't think we really have a plan for - and that is, efforts to suppress the count and discourage immigrants from being counted. I actually do have a fear of that.

We have seen people take the law into their own hands, vigilantes - Minutemen - on the border to enforce immigration laws on their own. I can easily foresee individuals trying to take the law in their own hands as they interpret it, to keep immigrants from being counted in the census.

It adds to our role as advocates and people monitoring the conduct of the census itself to make sure that these barriers don't arise and people are held accountable who work at the Census Bureau. Because they will be hiring over half a million individuals and - you know - they may hire people who actually have those kinds of views. That is something that I think we're going to have to keep an eye out for as the Bureau does its hiring and screening.

With regard to redistricting, that is the next step, of course, after we get a census count, in terms of how the Congress will be reapportioned and how those lines will be drawn at the legislative level for congressional seats and state legislative seats. I'm hoping this is a message that we will communicate to our community, that not being counted in the census really is going to harm our ability to have a full voice in state capitals and in Congress for an entire decade.

Wade Henderson, LCCR: Thank you, Arturo, and thank you, all.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for today. I want to thank all of you for your terrific questions. Thanks especially to our speakers, Arturo Vargas, Terry Ao, Terri Ann Lowenthal and Ellen Buchman, and thanks to all of you for participating in today's call, your commitment to this very important issue, and for taking action to ensure the 2010 census is successful.

We'll follow up in the next day or so with an email to you that will include our recording and transcription of this call, links to the resources that were discussed today, and a template for a letter to the editor to be submitted this week for the year-out mark on Wednesday, April 1st.

I want to thank you all. Operator, thank you for your cooperation. And again ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for participating in this very important call.