“[The Census] is like planning a party and needing a head-count,” said June Lim, the Director of the Demographic Research Project at AAJC, except some don’t come to the party after discounting the invitation as immaterial. This decennial party prepares goodie bags with rations for up to ten years; yet some never find their way to its doorsteps. Who are these people?
Half a million Asian Americans make up the San Gabriel Valley (a tract in Los Angeles County), making Asian Americans the majority (62%) in the region. But SGV is regarded ‘hard-to-count’, with the majority consisting of people who are limited English proficient (LEP) as well as elders who make up roughly 73% of LEP.
Goodies are only gift-wrapped and distributed for those that show, and those who don’t show are left to fend for themselves for the next decade. As two of the fastest growing ethnic groups, Asian Americans and NHPI must partake in the head-count if only to receive proper proportional benefits. But to add fuel to the fire, the two communities are found to be most distrustful of the government (according to the 2020 Census Barriers, Attitudes, and Motivators Study), therefore being least likely to respond to the Census.
The anti-immigrant sentiment spurred on for over a century by events like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or today’s America-first rhetoric may have contributed to this incredulity towards the benevolent nature of the Census. Considering that 67% of Asian Americans and 28% of NHPI in SGV are immigrants, most likely startled by the current administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the census, it is no wonder that fear takes precedence over receiving goodie bags.
The classic collective action problem can come into play as well when getting counted in the Census, which is akin to voter turnout. Only with the Census, even ‘one’ can be significant in terms of outcome―after getting counted, the fact that one can only go uphill is something that many fail to register when it comes to the Census. One must remember that truly everyone has an invitation to the party.
Thus a perpetual loop is sown, whereby these communities receive less government support because they are undercounted while continually being undercounted because they think the government is not supporting them. Such sustained misgivings about the government, and in effect the Census, have traditionally stemmed from the older generations, but younger generations are not immune to the same rooted convictions.
Persisting low propensities to respond to the census among the AANHPI communities must take a turn for the better―and I believe the answer lies within the youth. Youth―the 1.5 to second generations―are rewriting their narratives with a drive to include their communities in the civic process. Unfortunately, more often than not, their efforts are only being heard by those who are similarly passionate, while those who are cavalier (i.e., elders) are left to remain cavalier.
Change must come from the inside because we know our respective communities best. That may mean having difficult conversations with our parents, our grandparents about their attitudes and beliefs―whether nonchalant or vehemently opposing. I believe it is our duty as the younger generation to mobilize the older generation so that the values of civic engagement and representation can be entrenched for generations to come and only then, everyone can enjoy the goodie bags that have been prepared for them.