The U.S. Census Bureau’s Bellevue office held an open house Thursday that featured a Snoqualmie Indian family singing a tribal song, a Zambian dancer doing a traditional dance and a U.S. congressman urging residents to fill out their census forms.
The open house helped underscore two key points about the constitutionally-required head count: The county is diverse, and the work of counting everyone in it holds a great deal of political importance.
The last American Community Survey — a snapshot of the population that’s done by the Census Bureau — showed that 31 percent of the Bellevue population is foreign-born, and one-third of the population speaks a language other than English. Of cities in Washington with a population of more than 20,000 people, Bellevue has the largest percentage of residents that are foreign-born.
That diversity presents a special dilemma for the census bureau, however. Immigrants “tend to not to understand the importance of the census,” said Bellevue Councilman Conrad Lee, himself an immigrant (Lee was born in China and moved to Bellevue in 1958). “We tend not to be counted.”
Each uncounted person means a loss of about $1,400 in federal money per year, according to the Census Bureau. The census is also used to apportion congressional seats, and Washington may be large enough, population-wise, to qualify for a tenth congressman, if the count is high enough.
So the open house at the Census office in on 120th Avenue Northeast was also something of a pep rally for ethnic communities, faith-based and immigrant groups to help them organize a strong response to the census.
“It’s just a real simple deal,” said U.S. Congressman Dave Reichert. “Fill out the questionnaire. Send it in.”
Most people will be counted by mail. The census form will arrive in mailboxes around March 15, and census organizers expect most people to drop the return envelope in the mailbox.
But for those who don’t respond right away, census workers will be sent out to try to find out why a response wasn’t returned. And census-takers are also needed to count people at nursing homes, prisons, halfway houses, soup kitchens, even the race track — places where people don’t live in single-family homes or apartments with clearly-defined mailing addresses.
If you’re looking for a job, the census office is still hiring; in fact, they are expecting to employ 1,200 people at the office in Bellevue, and many of those positions are still open. Call the 2010 Census Jobs Line, 866-861-2010, for information.
What skills are required? The census is “looking for people who are friendly,” said recruiter David Higgins. “Most of the jobs are door-to-door.” It’s a bonus if you speak more than one language.
Bellevue census office director John Saul says he’s expecting the count will show 600,000 people live in the area served by the east King County census office, which includes everything from Bellevue east to the county border, and south to the southern border of the city of Renton.
But getting a head count of the exact number — well, that’s what the census is all about.
[Seattle Times]
Do whites dance during Zambia census?
🙂 Mwiponta I love your reasoning.
The question is, do we even have to dance for census? Not even in Zambia do we dance for census. What happened? What next are Zambians going to dance for? Hunting season?
=)) kalos2020 you have made my day.
So we are now exporting ifi nyai to dance kubena Obama ! Um Elolwanya.:-?
Surely this depends on the context in which the dance was performed. As far as I can see it helps to put Zambia on the map. Publicity can pay dividends.