Indigenous Migrants May Be Counted in the Census 2010

With the objective of counting the indigenous people who work and live in the United States in the Census 2010, the Binational Center for Oaxacan Indigenous Development (CBDIO) has launched a campaign to promote the participation of indigenous migrants.

Every ten years the U.S. government holds the national census mandated under the Constitution to register all people in all states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. The census includes people of all ages, races and ethnic groups living in U.S. territory.

The information collected by the census is for local officials to decide where to establish schools, roads, hospitals, child care, elderly care centers and other community investments. Businesses use the data to build supermarkets, shopping malls, new homes and other buildings.

Similarly, census data influences to determine the makeup of Congress, for example how many representatives per district should be set at the House of Representatives, and legislative district boundaries.

How many indigenous are we?

Because there is no exact information on the Indigenous population in general and in particular Oxacan Indigenous persons living in the U.S., this census will be crucial for indigenous communities to be made visible and recorded in the census.

It’s important to assure that the information provided to interviewers of the census is confidential and should not be disclosed publicly. Moreover, this time the census questionnaire will include ten simple questions that include the name of the person, kinship of who shares housing, gender, age, date of birth, whether the respondent owns or rents the dwelling, place of residence and race.

Precisely in Question 9, relating to race, there is the option of “Indian / Native to Americano/a- / a Alaska” and includes a space to specify the name of the Indian race. This is where it’s being asked to specify whether they are indigenous Mixtec, Zapotec, Triqui, or any other indigenous community.

Previously, the Oaxacan indigenous people who have migrated in large numbers to California since the early ’80s, preferred not to answer the census questionnaire due to language barriers, and because they often lived in inaccessible places such as the grooves of fields, overcrowded apartments and garages, among other places.

However, the CBDIO considers it a right of indigenous people to be counted in the census as one cannot deny the reality that thousands of Indigenous people live and work in this country. This count would help give a close figure of the indigenous population and it would allow them to have access to community resources that they are entitled to.

From the 2000 Census, the CBDIO became involved in promoting indigenous participation in the census of the United States. Subsequently, following the work of several organizations working with indigenous or indigenous people as the Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities(CBDIO), the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations (FIOB) and California Rural Legal Assistance (CLRA ), among others, they were able to advocate for an extra space for indigenous people to identify their race.

CBDIO Campaign
For the 2010 Census, the CBDIO is developing an intense campaign that promotes the participation of the indigenous population in Census 2010, through flyers and educational materials with information which is provided through workshops, public forums, presentations and community events.

The CBDIO staff will also be helping the indigenous community to fill out the questionnaire. Interpretation in Mixtec, Zapotec and Triqui will be provided if needed. CBDIO will also speak about the importance of the 2010 census. Similarly, the CBDIO talk about the importance of the Census 2010 in various areas of dissemination as Radio Bilingue, television stations and the newspaper El Sol Oaxaqueño. CBDIO campaigning will include hats with the Census and CBDIO logo as well as other items that will be useful to the community.

Census officials contemplate sending questionnaires by mail or handing them in the homes from February to March 2010. On 1 April 2010, it will be officially declared Census Day, April to July, the interviewers will visit the homes of people who did not return the questionnaire by mail, by December 2010, the Census Bureau will deliver the results to President Obama for proportional distribution purposes and in March 2011, the Census Bureau will finish delivering the data to the legislative redistribution of the states.

For more information on indigenous participation in the 2010 Census, call CBDIO at (559) 499 1178.
If you or your organization need to use information in Spanish , please visit:
http://2010.census.gov/partners/materials/spanishstates-materials.php