It only happens every ten years, so much like the Olympics (yes...I know the games occur more often) there's hype and excitement about it. At least there is for me. And probably the people that work for the census. But no one else seems very excited. Everyone I've spoken to seems to say, "eh."
I think about the "Mr. Willis of Ohio" episode in West Wing where the democrats are considering using sampling data instead of a direct count. They wanted to do this because it would cost way less and according to research, give the government a better count. They argue that the standard way the census is done is unfair to many different minority populations (illegals, (whom while they are illegal still need to be counted) the homeless and all minority populations) in the country. The republicans say that the constitution requires a head by head number count.
It's an interesting argument. I think that how we get the number is far less important than getting people the right number of representatives in the government, the right amount of monies for the SCHOOLS and all the other social programs that depend on how many people live in a certain area. I believe the founding fathers would agree with me.
And after learning that only about half of the people of the state of New Mexico were counted properly last time around (re: illegals, the homeless and the various different minority populations) and that the one of the more serious reprocussions has been the over crowding of our schools, I was even more excited.
So how are people not excited about this?
I wanted to be the person that filled out the census for my family ten years ago when I was sixteen, but because it's supposed to be the "head of household" my father filled it out. I was excited this time and made The Boy promise that I could be the one that filled it out. (I was "Head of Household!" Sadly, the form didn't say that specifically.)
It was a disappointment. Sort of like the time I saw Maya Angelou speak and it dawned on me that she was a racist. (True story.) Or when I voted for Obama but voted nay on the wrong state constitutional amendment and had to go through the crazy process of getting a second ballot and walking out wondering if my vote was now even going to be counted in this historical election because my name was on the roll in two places. (Ok, obviously, I never quite got over that experience.)
So we got a letter a week ago from the census bureau. I was so excited, ready to fill it out, only to open it and find a letter saying that we would soon be getting our form. When we finally got it, it was in a small envelope. So I filled it out and set it out to mail. We picked up our friends' mail while they were gone for spring break and they got a big envelope! I was so curious how our forms were different that I asked him to open it up right then when he came to pick up his mail. His form was in English and SPANISH!!! Now, why didn't we get a form in both languages? After all, this is the only state in the union that recognizes both English and Spanish as official languages.
I can only surmise that they saw the (very nice) location and fanciness of our house and assumed we spoke English. Our friends live in a part of town where the neighborhoods aren't as nice and there are more small rentals than houses. The Boy suggested that perhaps the people that lived here before spoke English and they had that information on file. I guess that would be ok, though still not kosher according to our state constitution except that all the houses that were here before were torn down to make way for the fewer and nice houses that are here now.
I also think there should be more questions. There's so much more the government could learn from such an official form. After all, it does say on the envelope that our response is required by law. (How would you be prosecuted for that after all?) After all the time and effort the bureau put into the census I gotta say, I'm not impressed.
I came home to this flower from The Boy!
Oh and that's my favorite wine.
PS. I lined the children up the same way I did yesterday and didn't get any parental complaints. Whohooo!
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