Despite Disaster, Austin Leveled Up in the 2020 Census: Travis County was the only urban county in Texas to beat its 2010 census response rate – News

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John Lawler (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Despite a pandemic, meddling president, and anti-immigrant maneuvers shading the 2020 census, Austin and Travis Counties have emerged and been counted. On June 8, the 2020 borough census team reported their good news to the Commissioners Court: Ours was the only borough in Texas to beat its own 2010 census turnout with a self-response rate of 67.3%, just behind El. Paso in the 2020 table.

Texas overall didn’t fare as well, ranking a mediocre 39th place on the self-response rate for 2020, which would likely cost the state an expected third new seat in Congress. Self-reporting is the most powerful measure of census completeness (loopholes are filled by “non-response tracking” of neighbors or landlords by Census Bureau staff), and much is at stake: Any uncounted person is estimated to rob Austin and Travis District with $ 1,500 in federal funding and serving as new districts are drawn for local, state, and federal office. (Detailed data for 2020 is pending; redistribution numbers will be released on August 16.)

“We tried to start at the bottom; Inches wide, kilometers deep, vs. kilometers wide, centimeters deep organizing, right? Try to find these universal things by first defining the individual strategies for each community. ” – John Lawler, Austin-Travis County Census Program Manager

So it is important to motivate people in “hard-to-count” communities; The city and county efforts were supported by local Asian American, Black / African American, Hispanic / Latino, and LGBTQIA + full census committees. The reasons for the reluctance to take the census are many and often justified, says Neal Whetstone, head of the Black / Africa American CCC: “You know, government involvement has often resulted in all kinds of redlining, in virtually every industry, figuring out where certain things are to be built or where not. “When we encounter hesitation,” instead of just saying, ‘Oh, no, no’ we say, ‘This is the story of the census. We cannot guarantee that the government will not do certain things with it. “Information; however, it is your constitutional right to get involved. ‘”

Alice Yi of the American Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association, who ran the community’s CCC, says that in addition to language barriers, Asian Americans (who are slated to become the largest immigrant group in the US by mid-century) also distrust the government . The threat of a census question about citizenship didn’t help: it “really excluded the interests of our community,” she says, given that many are refugees and undocumented. Yi adds that those who have arrived in the past 10 years (the Asian American population has grown 81% since 2000) may not realize that the census every decade is a routine event, which could create even more suspicion .

The pandemic-hampered face-to-face address that CCC leaders agree to is vital. “There was a time when we just stopped altogether,” says Whetstone. “It just didn’t seem appropriate [do] lots of personal activity. ”Despite such obstacles, John Lawler, Census Program Manager for Austin-Travis County, attributes his success to collaboration between institutional partners and CCCs with established grassroots connections:“ We tried to start at the bottom; Inches wide, miles deep vs. miles wide, organizing inches deep, right? Try to find these universal things by first establishing the individual strategies for each community. “

That included distributing information at trusted grocery stores and restaurants like Roland’s and Big Easy Bar & Grill – a way to “be honest with us,” says Whetstone while also helping Black-owned companies. Each CCC hosted livestream events and ran bilingual radio and television advertisements (paid for through United Way of Greater Austin grants). Mosques, temples and churches were important information centers. One of the most successful ads, Lawler says, showed a local Catholic priest encouraging his congregation in Spanish to conduct the census. George Morales, director of the Hispanic / Latino CCC, says PPE and food distribution events enabled people to be contacted while meeting needs in all communities; Anyone searching for the ravages of COVID was given census information, as well as hand sanitizer, masks and groceries.

“People really care that census information affects resources [made] “Lawler notes.” If you can link running the census directly to getting more kids free or discounted lunches, or better funding for your school … these are really motivated people. “

All parties involved agree that despite their success with more resources – including from the state, which has chosen not to invest in full census efforts until a hasty nationwide media blitz at the last minute – the number could have been higher. In the June 8 presentation, Lawler outlined how local and state support has helped build trust in hard-to-count communities – for example, providing bug spray and water bottles to the unaccompanied people ahead of the census. Morales and Yi agree that their “floor game” would have been stronger without COVID. Lawler adds that “there has been stress due to a lack of infrastructure and connection points between grassroots and institutional organizations,” which provided assistance and outreach.

He wanted to show in his report that the work could have gone further and faster, “if many of these community-based coalitions had already coordinated with governments and non-profit organizations as well as with each other”. The CCC executives all praise the cooperation: “I think it gave other people a perspective [the] Black community, our values ​​and culture and worldview “and vice versa, says Whetstone.” There was a lot of racial solidarity. “But in 2030 he wants to see a Latina at the top:” In 2030 we are just there will be more and more non-white people .. I think leadership should reflect demographics[s]. “

Lawler, in turn, advocates continuous investment in grassroots work: “We can’t always rely on these people and put the whole burden on their shoulders. We have to be sure that we support these community-based coalitions every year, ”Lawler says.

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