Lost in the constant chaos emanating from the White House is another impending catastrophe: the 2020 Census.
My niece was working as a census-taker in Portland until recently. She is of retirement age, barely over 5 feet tall, and one of the least intimidating people imaginable. Her last assignment was to go door-to-door in a quite nice, heavily Asian neighborhood, to follow up on the 20-plus residences that had not yet responded to the census.
Without exception, when the people saw her official U.S. Census credentials, they refused to engage with her, in some cases actually running back into the house to get away from her. After that experience, my niece resigned her position, since it clearly wasn’t working out, even though she could have used the pay.
What seems abundantly clear is that Trump’s unceasing efforts to intimidate and marginalize immigrants is working quite well, and that, even though all residents in the U.S. are supposed to be counted, the 2020 census will reflect a woeful undercount of people of color that will result in the misallocation of federal funds and in distortions of representation.
