Thread: BILINGUAL CENSUS FORM will HELP to LOCATE ILLEGALS!

COUNT the ILLEGALS, LOCATE the ILLEGALS, ARREST the ILLEGALS, FELONY Conviction for the ILLEGALS, and DEPORTATION for the ILLEGALS! GOOD JOB by the Census??????????

Bilingual census forms to be mailed in 2010
By AMY TAXIN Associated Press
Sept. 28, 2009, 8:56AM

Craig Lassig AP
JoAnn Rautio, a Census volunteer, runs a game at the U.S. Census booth at the Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights, Minn., earlier this year.

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LONG BEACH, Calif. — U.S. census officials are mailing out millions of bilingual questionnaires next year for the first time, betting that sending a Spanish language option directly to homes will lead to a more accurate count of the country's population.

The decennial census will be distributed in Spanish and English to 13.5 million households in predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. Latino advocates hope the forms will win over the trust of immigrants who are often wary of government and may be even more fearful after a recent surge in immigration raids and deportations.

"If the government is reaching out to you in a language you understand, it helps build trust," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. "I think the community has become really sensitive to political developments, and the census is the next step in this movement that we're seeing of civic engagement in the Latino community."

In addition to Spanish, census forms will be made available in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Russian upon request. That's similar to the 2000 census, when participants could request questionnaires in several languages. The forms were not sent directly to homes without request.

Traditionally, experts say, the Census Bureau has undercounted minority and immigrant communities, who are harder to reach because of language barriers and distrust of government.

Latino advocates hope the bilingual forms will help show their strength in numbers to underscore their growing political influence and garner more in federal funds that are determined by population.

Census officials say they designed the bilingual forms after extensive research, using the Canadian census questionnaire as an example. Over a six-year testing period, officials said the forms drew a better response in Spanish-speaking areas.

The bilingual forms will be mailed out to neighborhoods where at least a fifth of households report speaking primarily Spanish and little English, said Adrienne Oneto, assistant division chief for content and outreach at the Census Bureau in Washington.

More than a quarter of the forms will be distributed in California, with Los Angeles County topping the list. The Miami and Houston areas will also receive sizable numbers of the questionnaires.

Automatic mailing of the bilingual forms debuts in 2010.

No other language besides English is as widespread in the U.S. as Spanish. Roughly 34 million people reported speaking Spanish at home in the United States in 2007, more than all the other languages combined except English. Eighty percent of the U.S. population reported speaking only English at home.

The question is whether the bilingual forms will help overcome immigrant fears of federal authorities after seeing friends and family swept up in immigration raids over the last few years.

"It is a difficult time for immigrants and I could see where there might be concern where being counted might lead to future negative consequences," said Clara E. Rodriguez, professor of sociology at Fordham University in New York.

There are also concerns that the recession has dried up funding used to encourage people to fill out their census forms. Telemundo to help get the word out. The network's telenovela "Mas Sabe el Diablo" (The Devil Knows Best) will feature a character who applies to be a census worker.

Adding to the challenge of getting more people to participate is a boycott of the census called by Latino Christian leaders. They want illegal immigrants to abstain from filling out the forms to pressure communities that depend on their numbers to support immigration reform.

Census officials say they don't expect a backlash from English speakers because those likely to receive bilingual forms are used to hearing the two languages side by side.

Rob Toonkel, a spokesman for the pro-English advocacy group U.S. English, said he supports census outreach in a myriad of languages but worries that sending bilingual questionnaires only in Spanish and English might rub some immigrants the wrong way.

"When you start saying, well, this is our preferred immigrant group — whatever group that may be — it sends a very dangerous message," Toonkel said. "It would be the same thing if they started sending (it) to New Hampshire in French or Detroit in Arabic."

Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, said the forms should be sent only in English to encourage people to learn the language.

"Taxpayers should not have to carry the additional expense of providing bilingual questionnaires," Kasper said.

But many say the bilingual forms make practical sense — especially since youngsters may speak English even if their parents prefer Spanish.

In Teresa Ocampo's neighborhood in central Long Beach, Mexican immigrants live in a dense stretch of bungalows and two-story apartment buildings alongside African-Americans, Asians and whites. Children playing in the street call out to each other in English, then respond to their parents in flawless Spanish.

That's how Ocampo, who is originally from Mexico, said she would have filled out the English census questionnaire if she had to.

"For me, it's much better in Spanish because I don't know English, not enough to fill out a long form," said Ocampo, whose teenage children are bilingual. "If they send it in English or Spanish, either way I'll do it, because my kids speak English."


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spe ... 40836.html

Too many Pro-ILLEGAL comments on the source article but of course Houston is a SANCTUARY City.