The Census is coming, and its impact is too important for our community to ignore. Census data is used as a basis to allocate more than $300 billion in federal funds for schools, health care and immigrant services, the enforcement of civil rights laws, the distribution of political power, and the availability of bilingual ballots. From AALDEF's press release:
In preparation for Census 2010, AALDEF will play a central role in carefully monitoring Census operations and advocating for crucial changes to Census policies. AALDEF has already begun working with many regional Census officials to ensure that the hiring of partnership specialists and other outreach staff adequately reflects the local ethnic communities. AALDEF will advocate for stronger enforcement of the confidentiality of census information, expansion of the Telephone Questionnaire Assistance (TQA) program, and relaxed immigration enforcement during enumeration.It's important that we spread the word, mobilize and make sure the APA community gets counted in 2010. The multilingual fact sheets -- available in Englihs, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Punjabi, Tagalog, Urdu and Vietnamese -- can be downloaded online at:
A decade ago for Census 2000, AALDEF spearheaded several initiatives to ensure an accurate count of the Asian American community. Such key initiatives included securing a moratorium on immigration raids during peak census periods and eliminating citizenship requirements in the Census Bureau’s hiring practices. In addition, AALDEF conducted numerous community and legal trainings throughout the country to further educate the public on the Census.
Over the coming months, AALDEF will also provide comprehensive trainings to community groups and social service agencies interested in learning more about the Census. AALDEF staff members will be available for speaking engagements as well as in-depth trainings and workshops. For more information, please contact AALDEF at 212-966-5932.
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Arabic.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Bengali.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Chinese.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_English.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Gujarati.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Hindi.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Japanese.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Khmer.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Korean.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Lao.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Punjabi.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Tagalog.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Urdu.pdf
http://www.aaldef.org/docs/Census_Vietnamese.pdf
Pass it along.
