Diane Burgis remembers a time when the census wasn’t so political. Now, after the Trump administration’s attempt to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, the Contra Costa County supervisor says the county has to rethink its strategy to ensure everyone participates. “There’s been a lot of attempts to create fear,” she said.
Contra Costa County sits east of the San Francisco Bay, and Burgis’ district is an economically and ethnically diverse area with both cities and a strong agriculture industry. The county also has a large immigrant population, and the Public Policy Institute of California estimates more than 77,000 undocumented immigrants live here. That’s why Burgis sees the 2020 census as pivotal to ensuring her constituents are represented accurately.
“If we don’t count them, we can’t serve them,” Burgis said.
Earlier this summer, in a split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The court’s decision came after a contentious battle between the Department of Commerce and several Democratic states and immigrant rights groups that sued the Trump administration. Though the Court’s decision was hailed as a victory for immigrant rights, many advocates and officials feel that the damage has already been done. They worry that, when the time for the census count comes, those households that include undocumented or foreign-born individuals will not participate.
Census officials estimated that the question would have led 8 million people to avoid participation, most of them in urban, immigrant, and Hispanic populations. The worry is especially acute in California, where about 75 percent of people are part of what’s known as hard-to-count populations that are historically underrepresented in the census: immigrants, children under 5, renters, and the like. If the state’s population is undercounted, it could lose a seat in the House of Representatives and population-based federal funding.
As such, the California Census Office has allocated $187.2 million to insure an accurate count in the state. The office uses 14 variables to designate hard-to-count households, then uses that index to disperse funds to areas that have a higher number of such households.
The state has focused on finding local grassroots organizations that can reach out to their unique populations. “They know their community best,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo with the California Census Office. “Relying on local trusted messengers with trusted messages will increase the likelihood of a complete and accurate count.”
Similar strategies are being employed around the West, especially in states with large hard-to-count populations. Oregon has set up a 2020 census committee that’s working with county offices to reach their hard-to-count groups. In Arizona, the iCount2020 campaign, funded by municipal, county, and Native governments in the Phoenix area, has the same goal of educating residents and increasing participation.
Back in California, Contra Costa County has received $362,000 from the state’s 2020 census office. The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors isn’t involved in the count itself, so its goal is to rebuild community confidence in the census and find and educate hard to count groups.
Along with the state funds, the county has set aside another $500,000 toward the same goal. The funds from the state census office will be distributed in small grants to nonprofits that are organizing outreach and education campaigns. For instance, Contra Costa has partnered with groups in other counties to translate census materials into several different languages. The county also is working with youth group First 5 Contra Costa, which has planned a campaign using a Sesame Street character, the Count, to spread awareness and take politics out of the census.
“It’s about taking what we have, as far as resources, and being thoughtful about what we do with them,” Burgis said.
In San Francisco County, nonprofits like Chinese for Affirmative Action have also started outreach campaigns. Hong Mei Pang, CAA’s director of advocacy, said the citizenship question proposed by the Trump administration has already caused a lot of damage among immigrant and undocumented communities. “Confusion and fear sowed by misinformation will make implementation of the national survey much more difficult,” she said.
Pang said immigrant communities are often incredibly private and find the census to be intrusive, and the mistrust has only gotten worse since Trump took office. “Trust in the Census Bureau and the federal government has eroded,” she said.
To counteract this, CAA is partnering with a number of groups around the city to help community members complete the survey. CAA is also staging multilingual and multi-racial canvassing efforts throughout San Francisco, and is working with a parents group to hold workshops with other parents in immigrant communities.
For Burgis, the census isn’t just about money or House seats. To her, the decennial count is about building a strong community of residents who can support each other.
“It’s beautiful to see who our community is and to be able to celebrate it,” Burgis said. “It helps us understand each other, our concerns and challenges.”
