By the end of March all households across the U.S. will receive detailed information about how to respond to the 2020 Census online, by phone, or by mail.  All persons living in the U.S. whether they are citizens, permanent residence or have various immigration status are required to be counted.

The census is much more than counting the population of the U.S. The data from the census is used by the federal, state and municipal governments to allocate revenues, created electoral boundaries and even determine where interpreters must be sent at poll sites across the U.S.

For example, if 300,000 French speaking Creole reside in Silver Spring, Md. but they did not fill the census form, the government will not know that the area has a large Creole speaking community. Therefore, no French speaking interpreters will be sent to poll sites there to assist French speaking Creole. On the other hand, if all 20,000 Bengali speaking Indians living in Silver Spring participated in the census, the federal government will know that interpreters are required at poll sites to help Bengali voters who cannot speak English.

EVERYBODY’S March issue has an article by Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City about the importance of the census to his city.

The South Asian and Indo-Caribbean community in conjunction with New York Immigration Coalition recently held a roundtable meeting to focus on the critical importance of the census in determining billions of dollars for education, healthcare, housing, transportation, and more, as well as ensuring that all New Yorkers from all backgrounds are fully represented in the nation’s once-in-a-decade count of its populace.