Census Worker dropped off our form a little while ago

[ThomWV]

We live on a road that is just in the process of converting from Rural Route box numbers to street numbers for mail delivery. As a consequence our Census Questionnaire was hand delivered about a half hour ago. I filled it out (2 person home) and put it in the mailbox. It will be on its way back home tomorrow.

This is the third time we've been counted here. After the last one, or was it the one before, this state lost a Representative. The Census counts. Aside from representation, and maybe in its way more important than how many Representatives you get, is that the raw head count is sometimes one of the determining factors when the state receives Formula Grants.

So, the forms are coming. The Census, aside from being a Constitutional demand, is a good thing. Fill 'em out and get 'em in. It only takes a couple of minutes and like many other small things, it counts.

[Oregone]

1. Half of them wont come back this year if it cuts into people's American Idol time

[RKP5637]

4. And voting in elections cuts into people's American Idol time too. One day Americans

will say WTF happened. I thought everyone else was doing it all for me, and anyway, I was busy with American Idol.

[rfranklin]

2. Well, the tea baggers and their ilk are spreading fear about the census...

Getting people riled up about that evil ol' gubmint.

[kestrel91316]

5. It's fine with me if teabaggers and their ilk don't get counted, and thereby

lose out on representation and funds........

I mean, think about it. It benefits the rest of us.

[RKP5637]

7. Excellent point!!! n/t

[kestrel91316]

16. Sort of like "starving the beast" in reverse.....

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Details..I want details!!! How many bathrooms do you have????

Seriously, how long was the form, how many questions, how specific were the questions?

[ThomWV]

6. There are 10 questions, it took exactly 3 minutes to fill out for 2 people, no bathroom questions

I know there is an extended form that they send out randomly, we got one one year, possibly two generations ago. That one took a little longer, but the regular form is short and sweet. It wants your name(s), date(s) of birth, and a couple of questions about race or ethnicity. That's it.

[Oregone]

9. Oh, now they know where you live and can round you up

You should of put something down for your race that *they* will never think of disposing of when Sri Lanka attacks. Like Inuit.

[livetohike]

12. There won't be a long form this year. Everyone is getting the

10 question form. There are on-going Census operations that collect the data that the long form covered. Hopefully, there will be a good participation rate this year.

I worked during Census 2000 as an office manager. We had a 72% completion rate from the mailed in surveys, which I believe was the national average in 2000 and had to go out and get the rest door to door.

[kirby]

18. Keep in mind...

The official census (the every 10 year one) is only 10 questions.

There is another longer form (about 24 pages) called the 'American Community Survey'. That form is sent to 3 million households every year. This process replaced the older census method of some people receiving short vs long forms.

[Fumesucker]

8. My ex was a census worker in 2K..

Even the instructor in the class she took didn't know the Census was illegally used to round up Japanese Americans in WWII..

[Oregone]

10. I just made a random joke in this thread

Had no idea they used that.

[Fumesucker]

13. Yep..

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/cens17.shtml

Census blamed in internment of Japanese

Scholars study wartime bureau

Friday, March 17, 2000

By STEVEN A. HOLMES
THE NEW YORK TIMES





WASHINGTON -- Two scholars say in a new research paper that despite earlier denials, the Census Bureau was deeply involved in the roundup and internment of Japanese Americans at the onset of U.S. entry into World War II.

The academics say the Census Bureau's involvement included identifying concentrations of people of Japanese ancestry in geographic units as small as city blocks, lending a senior Census Bureau official to work with the War Department on the relocation program and a willingness to disclose names and address of Japanese Americans.

While it is common today for the Census Bureau to publish reports that detail the number of people of a given race living in an area as small as a city block, such information was generally not available in the 1940s. But the authors of the paper contend that the Census Bureau provided such detailed information as well as age, sex, citizenship and country of birth to the War Department, now the Defense Department, on only one group -- Japanese Americans.

In 1941 and '42, the paper says, Census Bureau officials believed that such information was valuable to the War Department's effort in rounding up Americans of Japanese ancestry.

[ThomWV]

15. Holy shit! Have you looked at the detail of the questions they asked in 1940?

http://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/items1940.shtml

I would have refused to fill it out myself.

[Romulox]

14. Speaking of...the 2010 Census has 15 racial classifications...11 of which are Asian ethnicities...

And yet no place for "Indian"... :wtf:

* White
* Black, African Am., or Negro
* American Indian or Alaska Native
* Asian Indian
* Japanese
* Native Hawaiian
* Chinese
* Korean
* Guamanian or Chamorro
* Filipino
* Vietnamese
* Samoan
* Other Asian (print race in box below)
* Other Pacific Islander (print race in box below)
* Some other race (print race in box below)

http://blogs.census.gov/2010census/2010/01/the-word-negro.html

[Oregone]

17. Very very very strange

Not that it isn't important to account for the differences in such Asian races, but why not others?

[Romulox]

20. lil' bit of a meta-narrative about race inherent in the question itself, methinks...

The question remains whether it is a privilege or a slight to be deemed to have no ethnicity by the US government.

But aside from any value judgments, the worldview embodied in the way the question is broken down is indeed very very very strange!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

24. No field for mixed?

I really don't qualify as any of those exclusively

[JustinL]

26. the form allows you to check multiple boxes n/t

[Romulox]

30. I guess I'll have to write in "Quebecker", since it's not a choice.

If you're Filipino, now that's an ethnicity; nobody cares where in Europe your parents came from though!

[JustinL]

25. "American Indian" and "Asian Indian" are both there n/t

[Romulox]

29. OK. Where do I put "Irish", or "Estonian" or "Lebanese"?

Thank god that the US government is able to divide us into "Somoans" and "Not Somoans", but why doesn't it care about my ethnicity (or do I not have one)? :hi:

[kirby]

19. In 2010, just don't check off the terrorist box. n/t

[Fumesucker]

21. I don't think that box was on the 1940 form either..

And I'm guessing you don't know that no Japanese American was ever convicted of any disloyal act during WWII..

Indeed, quite a few Japanese American troops distinguished themselves in the European theater in WWII..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_service_in_World_War_II

[Thothmes]

28. Some in the Pacific Theather as well

Japanese American Soldiers were volunteered for interperters in the Burma theater of operations.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. I did not know they used the census to do that either!

but shit, it's not like our names are not in the city and county and state and fed databases already.
Why the hell can't they just cross check those piles of info?

Yeah, I am a surly privacy freak.

[Fumesucker]

23. It's not exactly something they teach in American history class..

Or at least certainly not in HS, I knew it in 2000 but I'm damned if I can recall just when I learned..

I have no doubt that given sufficient motivation the government wouldn't hesitate to use Census data like that again.

[Brickbat]

11. Ours came by today too! Very exciting.

[orleans]

27. i got a form letter in the mail telling me my census would be coming

in the mail next week. thanks for wasting the fucking postage on a letter telling me to expect a letter. my god--how stupid is that??