UPTOWN S 32 CityAndStateNY.com
August 24, 2020
Census experts call Latino communities ‘hard to count.’ But Washington Heights and Inwood have some of the best response rates in the city.
By Kay Dervishi
that Latino communities, particularly Latino immigrants, are considered “hard to count” in the census. Strong mobilization has capitalized on the civic nature of the region’s Dominican community, according to census outreach workers in the area. And previous outreach efforts made it easier to convince residents to fill out the census in 2020, although most in-person initiatives
were suspended due to the pandemic. “That push really led people to understand what the census is,” said Juan Rosa, Northeast director at the NALEO Educational Fund, which promotes civic engagement among Latinos. “And when we went out now, it’s a lot about doing outreach and equipping people with the ‘how to’ and the ‘when’, rather than edu-
EMILY GERAGHTY/ SHUTTERSTOCK
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HE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC has derailed efforts to get New York City residents counted in this year’s census. The city’s census response rate has lagged 8 percentage points behind the national average and several neighborhoods have seen fewer than half of residents respond. But Washington Heights and Inwood, which have historically performed well in responding to the census, have outpaced the city as a whole. Certain parts of the area have reached response rates as high as 75% – far surpassing the national rate – and in most census tracts, more than 60% of residents have filled out their census forms. Much of the area’s success can be attributed to its history of effective census outreach. Relying on a network of religious institutions, schools, local nonprofits, elected officials and doctors to spread the word, the largely Dominican community in the area has consistently been able to make the decennial count a priority. The Upper Manhattan neighborhoods had higher average response rates than the city in both 2000 and 2010 censuses, earning it the honor of having one of the highest participation rates nationally during the 2010 census. “The neighborhood has developed a strategy and culture for responding to the census,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who was also actively engaged in census outreach during 2010 as a state legislator. Success in Washington Heights and Inwood has also defied conventional wisdom