Although fear of deportation within migrant worker communities played a role in past census undercounts and will certainly be a big factor again in 2010, farm worker advocates say their primary concern is that migrant workers may never even get an opportunity to fill out the census form.
Officials from the U.S. Census Bureau gathered to hear from community advocates recently, in an effort to improve their outreach to migrant and seasonal farm workers, as they prepare for the 2010 decennial census. The bureau hopes to avoid a repeat of what some here described as a “mega undercount” of farm workers in 2000, the last time the census was conducted.
“In 2000, of those farm workers who were not counted on the census, 80 percent were missed because their whole household was missed,” said Ed Kissam, a research consultant for California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA). “They never even received a questionnaire.”
Non-traditional living arrangements, overcrowded housing, isolation and the transient nature of much farm work, make migrant communities especially susceptible to an undercount.
“We have migrant farm workers who come in from other areas and work for a short period of time, so finding them is hard,” said Alma Alvarez, a CRLA community worker. “We need to be aware of the farming seasons -– when they are going to be here, and when they are going to be gone.”
Beginning in March, the bureau will mail out the census questionnaire to homes across the country, based on a nationwide database of mailing addresses.
The address-based system, said Alvarez, will fail to reach farm workers and their families who live in labor camps located on private farms, or other types of non-traditional and temporary housing structures that have no formal mailing address.
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