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GET DOWN WITH THE COUNT WORDS BY | MICHELE DARR
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he Census 2020 fuse is lit and #WeCountOregon is working overtime to amplify the voices of communities of color to ensure they are represented. With the coronavirus pandemic commanding worldwide attention and threatening larger and larger swaths of the US population, accurate census information is critical, especially for Black and marginalized communities least equipped to cope with the fallout. Given that participation in the census heavily impacts the number of federal dollars that are allocated to provide basic goods, services and resources, community activists are now joining the struggle to engage every American in making the most of the decennial count. An accurate count informs rescuers how many people will need their help in a crisis and gives health care providers the ability to predict the spread of diseases through communities, especially those populated with children, elderly and socially/economically vulnerable people. Despite the vast and tireless efforts of the US Census Bureau to count every single person living in the US, nearly a quarter of the population is still considered “hard to count”. Historically u n d e rc o u n t e d d e m o g ra p h i c s i n c l u d e minorities, people of color, immigrants, renters, rural communities, and parents of children under 5. Enter the #WeCountOregon campaign. “We are really clear that the Census count is all about 3 things: Money, Representation and Power. In terms of leveraging our 26
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collective voices and staking a rightful claim in the apportionment of resources, the Census is one of the most democratic processes that we have in the United States,” passionately stated #WeCountOregon campaign manager, Esperanza TervalonGarrett, CEO and founder of Dancing Hearts Consulting, LLC. “#WeCountOregon is a BIPOC(Black, Indigenous, People of Color)-led statewide effort that gathered last February because we knew that reaching out to over a million people in Oregon was going to require something different to make sure that hard to count communities are educated and participating in the 2020 US Census,” she explained. “In 2016 alone, 13 billion dollars of our money came from the feds. That amounts to $3,200.00 every year over ten years for every person counted and that number is likely to increase as inflation and other factors in our economic systems shift. Literally, we are looking at millions of dollars for each person, and in hard to count communities, this money becomes a huge issue.” In terms of representation and power, an undercount may also mean fewer seats in Congress or State Legislatures and for countless vulnerable communities, not being counted in the census risks leaving them unseen, undercounted, and underserved. “No matter where we are living in this beautiful state, we deserve to have our voices heard and having an additional person representing us in Washington DC really does mean that we have a stronger voice and are impacting federal policies which impacts all of our lives,” she continued. “Our organization
also felt that it was really important at this moment in history to tell a new story about Oregon and to remind people that Oregon is not just beautiful green forests and white progressive liberals, but is also filled with Black, Indigenous, Latin- Mexican, Chinese and Immigrant folks that for centuries have built our railroads and sealed our reputation for having some of the best fruit trees and fruit available in the country.” She went on to explain why different tactics are needed to get an accurate count amongst the historically undercounted. This included working with Open signal
