[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen will the government come to its senses and deliver us an accurate, future-proof census? While reading this article people have to put aside all religious and political beliefs.
10 Questions in 10 Minutes the 2010 census
Please note that 2010 Census determined the allocation over 400 billion funds in the United States.
Questions with Dates: On April 1, 2010?
The questions are clearly stated. Sometimes I am sure that people ask or answer these based on the current day, not April 1st, 2010. As family historians we know to look for those things.
Question Sex: What is Person 1’s sex?
This question could be problematic for future researchers. They do not ask what Gender/Sex you were legally born. They do not ask what Gender/Sex you legally are as of April 1st, 2010. Please note this has nothing to do with gender identity, just legality. Now that gender is something that can be changed legally this question must be updated but as of the 2020 census will not be.
This is where the fun happens. Typically race refers to a person’s physical traits or characteristics. These are racial traits via bloodlines. Origin typically refers to where a person or that persons ancestors hailed from, based on geographic borders, normally that of a nation.
Why only ask about the origin of the Hispanic population? The government constitutes the origin in this case to be the ethnicity of the person, not the race. Does the government then believe that the Hispanic Ethnicity is the only one that should be documented in the questions and why?
In 2015 the Census Beuro made a unified question for testing that treated Hispanic origin instead as a race where you could still pick another. They tested with both write in response method and detailed checkbox method. Both unified options seemed to give a more accurate picture of America. No plans to use a unified question for the 2020 census have been announced.
In 2020 the Census will basically be the same
There will be more money on the line than there was in 2010 and there is one notable, possible change to the actual census. The Justice Department wants to insert a Citizenship question into the 2020 Census. How many people will lie or try to avoid it? How will this affect population counts, financial programs, government representation and public services in those areas? I would be afraid to tell the census taker I was living here illegally.
What do we think of society as we look back at the questions that were asked?
In the Census, what will our descendants see and think they know about this time period and how wrong will they be?