The decennial Census is an agent of this nation’s legacy, a way of seeing how our population and society have changed, how people have migrated, and the collected data is one of the great tools for researching one’s personal lineage, that is, once the records become public. Confidentiality, the privacy of your information, is a part of the Census. All of the personal data collected from the questionnaire is protected and remains confidential for seventy-two years, specifically what identifies a named individual at a particular location and all responses attached to this individual. This is the law. Enumerators take an oath to protect the information they collect and the training emphasizes a commitment to data stewardship. Private individuals and organizations are not granted access to this personal data, neither is law enforcement nor any other department or agency of the government. Responding to the Census does not open you up for any kind of investigation.
It’s important to understand that filling out the census form completely is not mandatory. So if that’s an obstacle, don’t let it be. It’s of course desirable, and would be very helpful. For the sake of your community and your state. That you are counted once, and in the correct location, is the most basic response to the Census. But answering all of the questions will make it work better for you, and for your community, as well as for your descendants. You do not need to provide your name if you choose not to, but please consider providing the number of occupants at a physical location, ages, ethnicity and/or race, and gender. The 2020 Census is disappointingly lacking in a response beyond male or female, and I trust that with your participation, this will be corrected by 2030, and perhaps soon for the Census Bureau’s ongoing surveys. These responses assure specific kinds of provisions— women’s health services, adequate and subsidized housing, resources for elders and children, libraries, roads, fire departments, social services, and so many services and programs which relate directly to the unique community in which you live. The questions asked, and the number of them, have varied from one decade to another *, but this year’s survey is very basic. Responses to the questions regarding gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds, combined with housing or the lack thereof, and all of the ways people are sheltered, will make for a fascinating picture of the United States in 2020. I urge you, please, to leave some traces. Do this for the ancestor you will become, for those who might find you in the future.
What happens when you don’t fill out the form? It usually means that a Census enumerator visits you to fill the form out with you in person. This is part of the operation known as NRFU— the Non-Response Follow-Up. Pronounced Narfu. This year, especially due to COVID-19, the Census Bureau encouraged people to complete the form online, through the mail, or by telephone. They also delayed the launching of all field operations, including NRFU, to protect the health of everyone involved. The schedule was altered and delayed multiple times. Organization and training were not as well coordinated as one could have hoped. Calls and in-person visits might have been experienced as excessive. Census fatigue became a thing. If you were among those visited by an enumerator, or several, I hope you remember the experience with some humor. They might have been there to ask about your household, but maybe it was actually about an address near to you which didn’t respond to the Census, and you might have become a proxy, and perhaps the only available person to provide reliable information to them—even if simply to affirm that an address was not occupied on Census day. Yes, they do request a telephone number for the person who provides this information, as they do on the original form that gets mailed to each household. Rarely is anyone called, but this number permits a confirmation that your data is correct, and again, as with all the information you provide, your telephone number is confidential, and protected information. I came to understand in my work as an enumerator that collecting the data is not a final step. It’s also necessary to confirm the data and multiple verifications are part of the Census. My experience has led me to see it this way: The Census places the highest priority on confidentiality, then accuracy. Efficiency is… somewhere…around the corner, or at least, a bit down on the list of priorities.
The 2020 Census felt and looked differently from the 2010 Census. We used smartphones in addition to paper forms, and wore masks. They gave us a clipboard. COVID-19 affected how enumerators could contact respondents. And the effects of COVID-19 in displacing significant numbers of people and groups, and isolating others, have posed significant challenges to obtaining an accurate count, and to counting people in the correct place. This has always been true for counting marginalized communities, and is this time especially true. Also problematic this year is counting college students, the elderly or hospitalized, those experiencing homelessness, and all of the individuals who live as house sitters and the otherwise mobile individuals who found themselves in places they never intended to be, in order to ride out the waves of the pandemic.
I am very glad and grateful if you have had the good fortune of working on the 2020 Census. It is work I would recommend to anyone. Things are interesting in the field, because you are dealing with people— the ultimate source of confirmation for all the information you are asked to gather, and people are endlessly interesting. This work attracts all kinds of people to it, fortunately, just like our population, and many unusual and quirky people get involved in it — I think this work actually favors the unconventional. If you are detail oriented, somewhat patient, enjoy some detective work, and — especially! — can enjoy working independently, it might be the best Summer job one could have. With flexible hours, decent pay (not quite as it was in 2010 when it was part of President Obama’s stimulus package), it offers insights into one’s community, and nation, in discovering the simple details of the lives of the people living closest to you.
Extraordinary things happened to me on the 2010 Census, simply because I went out to meet people, to help me answer the questions of the surveys. And I think that all enumerators have amazing stories of their experiences in the field, none which can be shared, alas, not really, not precisely, anyway. I had moments which filled me with such wonder at how people had taken the time to help me solve the mysteries of uncounted households, in improbable circumstances. It is work which cultivates initiative, resourcefulness, and sleuthing. I encountered an FBI agent at one location, each observing the other’s badge, who said to me: I think our jobs are rather similar. The work heightened my capacity for discretion, deepened my respect for the privacy of others and it was humbling on many levels. One of the greatest challenges I had to overcome was an awkwardness in approaching strangers. My feeling about that word— strangers— changed in that time, as I came to see that we’re all possibly strangers, some simply better known than others. Wonder, humility and gratitude were themes of that Summer. It was an honor to receive people’s trust, and I met many kind and wonderful people, including my co-workers and supervisors. It can be very intimate work. Some, even many people invited me into their homes, in 2010, to answer the questionnaire, while cooking for their family, sitting with their children, or with grandchildren in their arms. Some people were lonely and welcomed a visitor. There was a man in his nineties; I asked him to repeat his date of birth for verification, because it seemed impossible. An elegant man in a bathrobe who had just risen after noon, he met me on the stoop outside his home. A couple of weeks later I saw him walking down the street in the late afternoon, in a seersucker suit and straw hat— a man of the 1920s— sauntering with the grace of another era. I wish I could remember his name. I took the confidentiality aspect of my work to heart, consciously aiming to release information from my mind after completing a form, and while I recall faces, interiors, houses and streets I visited, conversations, atmospheres and vibrations, both good and not so good, I recall no names or numbers. Some of the most magical things of my life happened in my work on the Census, all because of the people who took a moment to speak to me. It became an almost sacred mission —feeding a higher goal—which I carried out on foot, on bicycle, by bus, metro and car. I was persistent, determined to be able to complete the form for each address, to ascertain its facts, as much as I could verify, occupied or not, and it seemed somehow that Summer, that my efforts were blessed. Each completed form, even if not complete on every line — because, sometimes it isn’t possible to complete things, and because houses and households, or the absence of one, are, like much of life— a little complicated. Each success was a small victory and contained something more— the beautiful experience of being human, of meeting people face to face, listening and exchanging in the wonderful ways that humans do. It was work I loved, and this brought much joy.
