Word: censuses
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...Washington An Election of Firsts Yes, we all know why the 2008 U.S. presidential election was a historic racial milestone. But according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the contest also virtually eliminated the long-standing gap in participation rates between black and white voters. For the first time, younger blacks voted in greater proportion than their white peers, and black women voted at a higher rate than any other demographic. Overall, though, the number of ballots cast rose only modestly from 2004, as gains in minority voting were offset by stagnant or declining turnout among other...
...This Census cycle also has its own batch of groups pushing for less counting, not more. A handful of Hispanic advocates are calling for illegal immigrants to boycott the Census, a threat meant as a bargaining chip to force more meaningful immigration reform. Other Hispanic groups are nonplussed by the tactic, considering how much federal funding is pegged to the count; the head of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials has called the move "well intended but misguided and ultimately irresponsible." (The Census doesn't ask whether a person is living in the U.S. legally, since the Constitution says...
...itself is rallying its residents to send in their forms, since shifting populations nationwide may mean the loss of a Minnesota seat in the House. The Minnesota Complete Count Committee will be in full force at the state fair this summer, handing out buttons and magnets, talking up the Census. "As a state, they are incredibly motivated to make sure everyone is counted," says Tim Olson, an assistant division chief who runs the Census's partnership program...
...general, that tends to be the American attitude. For even though Census data can be put to ill purpose - in World War II they were used to figure out which neighborhoods had large Japanese populations, so that people could more easily be rounded up for internment camps - what tends to trump those concerns is our fascination with ourselves and desire to be represented...
...Leading up to the 2000 count, before the Census included an option to check more than one race, the Bureau was flooded with letters from white women married to black men asking if they should check white or black for their children. They sent pictures and asked which parent the Census wanted their kids to deny. "They explicitly said it's about representation and respect, because no one thought there was going to be a special government program for children of mixed-race parents," says Prewitt, who was running the bureau at the time. "The Census is the picture...