[Jiangsu News] With the beginning of autumn, many students have already started school. But the teaching building and playground are quiet because their classrooms are virtualized. COVID-19 has changed the direction of this year in many ways, and even changed the timeline of the 2020 census. Despite the disruption, nonprofits continue to work until the deadline to keep their communities all counted. These nonprofits see the benefits of accurately counting people serving, including access to a fair share of community resources and government funding for Asian Americans.
Even before COVID-19, many local nonprofits have acted as trusted voice actors in their communities to promote the 2020 census. Recently, these nonprofits have become a collective lifeline that can cover people of various geographical regions, ages, races and Asian languages. From rural to urban areas, from college students to seniors, these organizations help people adapt to the new normal by providing important services such as meal delivery and regular phone calls to understand their most pressing needs.
U.S. Census Bureau is now more reliant on these local organizations than ever to act as trusted representatives of their specific ethnic and language communities. Through partnerships, the Census Bureau provides resources to help and support these local nonprofits to incorporate the 2020 Census Extension campaign into its regular programs and services.
Like Beatrice Chen, executive director of Immigrant Social Services (ISS), and her team are essential as they help to communities in need: Chinese immigrants in Chinatown, New York. Her team has been distributing care packages and educational toolkits to their families when their kids return to school, including 2020 census data, and even donating masks to local schools. “We will continue to work with local schools to ensure that the needs of children and their families are met during the unprecedented start of the new school year,” Chen said.
As early as New York when the stay-at-home order was implemented, ISS conducted regular inspections with families who were difficult to count, unable to access the Internet and needed Chinese help, and distributed census leaflets through their after-school activities. Chen’s team took advantage of any opportunity to convey the message that the census is critical to the health and well-being of their communities and that it will have a direct and broad impact over the next decade. "For the Asian American community in New York, we want to maximize the resources we deserve," Chen said. "And (the census) is a concrete example of allowing people to speak in the United States."
Meanwhile, Keiro, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles and serving Japanese seniors in Los Angeles, has started a major promotion of the 2020 Census since February this year. They rely on census and health data to gain a clear understanding of population aging. This data enables organizations to adapt their services to better support their customers.
"We used to focus on facility-based care centers, but since then we have started to turn to serving people who are aging at home. That's why many of our plans are working with community centers and churches," said Brandon Leong, who works in Keiro. With the closure of community centers and churches, Keiro has turned to online and remote promotion. They continue to share census information in Japanese and help older people stay in touch with technologies such as Zoom.
2020 census partner organizations, such as the Asian Pacific Network of Oregon (APANO), have joined the statewide alliance to further expand this information. The nonprofit based in Portland participated in the “We Count Oregon” campaign to raise awareness and inspire people to respond to themselves.
In August, they also held a dedicated "Asian and Pacific Islander Census Action Day" on the Facebook page to create a space for everyone to share their immigration stories to reveal the needs of diverse representatives who accurately reflect the community. The Census Bureau reported that as of September 23, Oregon counted 97.7% of the population. It's no easy task, as wildfires have burned parts of the state.APANO's team also made more than 10,000 calls to encourage Oregonians to respond to the 2020 census this year.
"If we don't know people exist, we can't serve them. That's why the census is important. When analyzing census data, we want to make sure that if certain groups are not served, we will come up with a way to help them," said Marchel Hirschfield, Equity Manager at APANO.
These organizations have made a lasting contribution to mobilizing everyone to participate in the 2020 census while caring for their neighbors. One way to express our gratitude to them is that we all completed the census. This is your last chance to fill out the form online, by phone, or by email.
Visit 2020CENSUS.GOV/ZH-HANS for more Chinese information about the 2020 census. To reply in your language by phone, call 844-391-2020 (Mandarin) or 844-398-2020 (Cantonese).
