Whether government investment comes back to your community in the form of school support, or fire trucks, or small business loans depends on an accurate count of how many people are in your community.
For generations, millions of Americans whose roots lie in the Middle East and North Africa — MENA — have essentially become invisible people because the Census Bureau has denied requests for their own racial category.
"What we're discussing is a humanitarian issue, not a political one. Our goal is to serve every person, especially children who don't have a voice yet," said Mayor Manuel Cantu of McFarland.
The Census Bureau has said it expects to hire about a half-million people nationwide to help in its all-important counting of everybody living in the United States.
For over three decades, Jeri Green has helped make the decennial census a leading civil rights issue, both as a Census Bureau insider, and now as an advocate for the National Urban League.
For Native Americans, the ethnic group with the highest undercount of any defined by the Census Bureau, diversity and isolation compound the obstacles to achieving a more accurate count.
