2020 Census Moves to Document the Undocumented
NEW YORK, NY — With the 2020 United States Census around the corner, New York City has ramped up efforts to achieve as complete a count as possible.
On Aug. 16, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson announced that Asian Americans for Equality, CHAZAQ Organization USA, and Make the Road New York will receive a total of $4 million to help historically undercounted communities.
Corona and Elmhurst, Queens are two areas concerned about count. The Community Board 4 district manager, Christian Cassagnol, worries the census won’t accurately reflect the demographic shifts that have happened over the last 10 years in his district.
The 2010 census numbers show that this area’s population was about 52% Hispanic and 33% Asian or Pacific Islander, and it has been steadily rising over the past few decades. The Office of the New York State Comptroller directly attributes this increase to the number of foreign-born immigrants who have moved into these neighborhoods.
Cassagnol believes those numbers, especially for the Hispanic community, are even higher today. “If you go to any other district, they don’t have as many Hispanic and, I’m going to say, undocumented people as we have,” he explained.
Cassagnol says that even the count from 2010 ought to be viewed with skepticism because “how do you document the undocumented?”
Daniel Altschuler, Director of Civic Engagement and Research for Make the Road New York, wrote in an email that the organization was “moving ahead on outreach and communications efforts in Jackson Heights and all the communities we serve.” Altschuler said that the organization has been piloting door-to-door outreach and training.
Other groups are preparing for what could be a hugely consequential uphill battle on both a local and national level. Because the census controls federal funding and draws congressional, state legislative, and school district boundaries, Community Board 4 is making an accurate census count their top priority.
At their September meeting, community board member Kristen Gonzalez, announced she will be forming a Complete Count Committee (CCC) to more easily direct census workers to learn about the community and its structure.“I was saying, okay, community board is the most local form of government. It’s a no-brainer that we should also be leading that,” Gonzalez explained. “This might be a neutral space, hopefully, that we can all send representatives and all get on the same page.”
Gonzalez also believes the community board could be a path towards decentralizing the census mobilization efforts in the community. She wants to work with nonprofits, but thinks it’s important to also focus on tapping into more informal networks in order to reach more people, such as school districts and local parent groups.
This is why Gonzalez feels that census mobilization has to go beyond conventional models. She believes that, “door-to-door is one strategy but I think people don’t even open the door unless they know who it is. So you need to have another way to meet people where they are.”
There has also been an increased number of I.C.E. raids under President Donald J. Trump’s administration targeting undocumented immigrants in their own homes. It’s for precisely this reason that they may be hesitant to open their door for any government official out of fear of deportation. Although Trump’s citizenship question won’t be on the 2020 Census, advocates say that the public panic and misinformation surrounding it may have significantly damaged the efforts for a complete census count.
Ultimately, Community Board 4 wants to step up their community presence through more active engagement and attendance at every government sponsored event in the area. Gonzalez thinks that if a larger group of people can make a coordinated push, then there will be more opportunity for conversations about the census with a wider range of people.
What that looks like is very simple. “Community is community. It’s someone’s cousins, their uncles, that also all happen to live in the neighborhood. So you need those folks too. Right?”
