Counting Hispanics

Sunday, September 16, 2007
Winston-Salem Journal
http://www.journalnow.com

The area’s growing Hispanic population will soon get a chance to take part in a civics exercise that should benefit them and everybody else. They should stand up and be counted - quite literally.

At issue is the 2010 Census. It’s still more than two years away, but leaders in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County rightly want to make sure that Census takers count everyone - including Hispanics. That’s because there’s big money at stake, as Bertrand M. Gutierrez reported in Tuesday’s Journal. Census numbers are used in Washington to identify areas that need federal money for programs dealing with affordable housing, education, Medicaid and emergency services. State budget officials also use those numbers to distribute money.

“If they’re a person that is living in your county, you want to make sure you’re counting that person because you’re probably going to be providing some level of service to that person,â€