2010 US Census thread because we can't move forward until you mail it back

WDYLL being properly accounted for, as stipulated by the Constitution?

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:07 (3 years ago) Permalink

I'm going on chatroulette tonight with just a picture of my census form. And my balls.

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:08 (3 years ago) Permalink

you have to bring your balls into every thread don't you

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:09 (3 years ago) Permalink

Step aside.

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:09 (3 years ago) Permalink

not long ago he was talking about the pubes of others, so his balls are a step in the right direction

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:12 (3 years ago) Permalink

I was doing no such thing. Believe it or not, that was one of the rare occasions when I didn't bring up the topic myself.

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:13 (3 years ago) Permalink

and yet i believe her

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:14 (3 years ago) Permalink

you have to bring your balls into every thread don't you

censused

― no chapo (Lamp), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:14 (3 years ago) Permalink

xp I suppose I have earned a lack of credibility in this area.

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:15 (3 years ago) Permalink

you were! maybe not overtly discussing in detail but reacting to the pubes of others!

anyway, can we talk about the special latino question?

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:15 (3 years ago) Permalink

i also found the language interesting "how many people live/stay in your apartment/house/mobile home"

the two verbs interest me

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:16 (3 years ago) Permalink

"special Latino question"...?

plz say it is not "Are you a special Latino? ___ yes ___ no"

― smoking cigarette shades? it doesn't even make any sense. (HI DERE), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:17 (3 years ago) Permalink

my apartment holds three comfortably, seventeen uncomfortably

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:17 (3 years ago) Permalink

are you an "angry Latina judge"

Yes ___

No ___

Fuck you, Scalia ___

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:17 (3 years ago) Permalink

i also found the language interesting "how many people live/stay in your apartment/house/mobile home"

Yeah, that is a curious verb choice. Does my dead mother in the attic count?

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:18 (3 years ago) Permalink

y

― smoking cigarette shades? it doesn't even make any sense. (HI DERE), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:18 (3 years ago) Permalink

Is she comfortable?

― Ask foreigners and they will tell you the gospel comes from America. (Laurel), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:20 (3 years ago) Permalink

it asked very specifically "are you of latino/hispanic descent and if so what kind" and then listed puerto rican, mexican, nicaraguan, etc. then there was a little box asking "are you of 'other' hispanic descent?" and listed colombian, "spaniard" etc.

THEN it asked for my "race" and i was given a chance to say whether i was white, African America/black/Negro, korean, Chinese, Guamanian, etc.

then there was a box for "OTHER"

so basically what I understood is this:

* they are counting latinos
* they are counting if someone is latino + something else
* they don't give you an option to mark if you are [x] race + (something else not latino)

weird, i thought
* they want to know if you are

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:21 (3 years ago) Permalink

whoops
ignore that last * point

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:22 (3 years ago) Permalink

U+K Walken sketch

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4165/saturday-night-live-census-taker

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:22 (3 years ago) Permalink

If they want to know if I am weird, they're going to have to have to be a little more specific.

― Ask foreigners and they will tell you the gospel comes from America. (Laurel), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:22 (3 years ago) Permalink

anyway, can we talk about the special latino question?

i think this is because the census is worried that if the significant population of americans who are latino/hispanic aren't given an option to list that as their ethnicity, they might get tripped up and choose white. from what i understand latino/hispanic isn't listed under the race category, because it's not technically a race. i assume the only reason there isn't also a separate white-race ethnicity disambiguation question for arab-americans is because that's not considered a "significant" population?

limiting people to specific races/ethnicities gets hairy, for sure. they should just provide a world map on the form and say "shade in every region from which you believe you have ancestors" during some particular time period.

― iiiijjjj, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:29 (3 years ago) Permalink

function of time period, of course, would be so that everyone doesn't just shade ethiopia

― iiiijjjj, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:30 (3 years ago) Permalink

I believe part of the reason for asking such specific questions is so such a map can be made.

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:31 (3 years ago) Permalink

right, but i'm saying at this point the accuracy of the map's data is only going to be as good as the question by which the data is obtained

― iiiijjjj, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:32 (3 years ago) Permalink

i understand why they're doing it -- i just want to know what they're going to do with the data. are these contortions the work of squeezing people into a box or expanding the box? because squeezing isn't going to get us anywhere.

ps USians can't read maps, duh -- try harder!

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:32 (3 years ago) Permalink

It's all so they can round us up into FEMA death camps more efficiently.

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:33 (3 years ago) Permalink

oh, i see. well i don't think they're trying to fit people into these boxes one way or another, only make sure the box itself is accurately defined. i guess the purpose of that is so grad students' sociology theses can be as accurate as possible?

― iiiijjjj, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:37 (3 years ago) Permalink

The white/non-hispanic vs. white/hispanic vs. non-white/hispanic-or-whatever-else-there-was distinction is one I'm familiar with primarily through seeing it used on Wikipedia. Thank you internet for keeping me up to date with demographic trends!

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:38 (3 years ago) Permalink

i like how the questions on the form are:

1) how many people are in your house?

2) How many people are REALLY in your house?

― akm, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 21:36 (3 years ago) Permalink

3) REALLY??

― akm, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 21:37 (3 years ago) Permalink

what is the legal difference btwn 'black' and 'negro'?

― sleepingbag, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 21:46 (3 years ago) Permalink

Are those two seperate options (haven't got mine yet)?

― musicfanatic, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 22:03 (3 years ago) Permalink

Got mine Monday, returned Tuesday morning. Came home to a vaguely "threatening" postcard Tuesday afternoon about returning it OR ELSE. Really?

― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 22:05 (3 years ago) Permalink

yup

13 USC Sec. 221
TITLE 13 - CENSUS

CHAPTER 7 - OFFENSES AND PENALTIES

SUBCHAPTER II - OTHER PERSONS

Sec. 221. Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers

(a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.

(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500.

― iiiijjjj, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 22:13 (3 years ago) Permalink

Oh I'm surprised by the "threat" just that the sent me the follow-up postcard literally the day after I got my forms. I know it takes like 3 minutes, but still.

― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 22:17 (3 years ago) Permalink

There's an add on the bus stop near my work encouraging people to fill out the census form so that Chicago Transit Authority knows how many more buses to add, which hurts me in my feelings area because the CTA just cut a ton of service, including my favorite bus, and no amount of census data is going to change that because we're broke.

That said, I filled out and returned our census form because I am a sucker for doing my civic duty. Also like I said in the Chicago thread, we straight, white, middle-class, married people need to STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.

― she is writing about love (Jenny), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 22:21 (3 years ago) Permalink

xxpost There's one checkbox that says "Black, Afr. Amer., or Negro" iirc; I guess it's not really a separate option but there's still some distinction apparently. The one for white just says "White"

― sleepingbag, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 22:24 (3 years ago) Permalink

Please check one

[ ] I'm white btw

― dmr, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 22:42 (3 years ago) Permalink

[ ] No homo

― kenan, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 23:02 (3 years ago) Permalink

i can hear the arguments in the congressional census committee about the black/AfAm/negro language -- they were just trying to cover their bases i'm sure

just like some people say "where do you live" and others say "where do you stay" -- covering their bases

i just would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in those meetings where they hash it all out, including the Special Latino Question of 2010

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:03 (3 years ago) Permalink

got my form today, pretty excited

― harbl, Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:06 (3 years ago) Permalink

wouldn't you love to see the first draft of this thing? i would.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:11 (3 years ago) Permalink

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:27 (3 years ago) Permalink

nice! i completed my census while 100% sober, but i will say that i felt a bit of giddiness when i was done.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:28 (3 years ago) Permalink

i'm drunk should i do it now

― harbl, Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:31 (3 years ago) Permalink

why is this the first time i received a census form? wha happen 1990 & 2000??

― velko, Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:32 (3 years ago) Permalink

Ed, is it going to be like me filing in UK voter registration with the equivalent of 'nobody in here but us chickens'?

― ned ragú (suzy), Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:35 (3 years ago) Permalink

mailed mine this morning. woooo

― dmr, Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:35 (3 years ago) Permalink

it doesn't have enough questions for my satisfaction!

― harbl, Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:36 (3 years ago) Permalink

538 is my magical number!
add one and it blows my mind

― ergonomically chromium plated fish slice (La Lechera), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 05:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

xp iirc they have an algorithm to account for people like you.

― naus, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 05:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

just concerned abt my homegirl who works for a ny congressperson. they are losing two districts, hope she gets to keep her job in two years.

― naus, Wednesday, 22 December 2010 05:38 (2 years ago) Permalink

any more news about the special latino section?

― ergonomically chromium plated fish slice (La Lechera), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 17:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

Mapping America: Every City, Every Block
Browse local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, based on samples from 2005 to 2009. Because these figures are based on samples, they are subject to a margin of error, particularly in places with a low population, and are best regarded as estimates.

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer

― Cunga, Saturday, 8 January 2011 00:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation’s babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority.

Population estimates show that 50.4 percent of children younger than 1 last year were Hispanic, black, Asian American or in other minority groups. That’s almost a full percentage point higher than the 49.5 percent of minority babies counted when the decennial census was taken in April 2010. Census Bureau demographers said the tipping point came three months later, in July.

The latest estimates, which gauge changes since the last census, are a reflection of an immigration wave that began four decades ago. The transformation of the country’s racial and ethnic makeup has gathered steam as the white population grows collectively older, especially compared with Hispanics.

The census has forecast that non-Hispanic whites will be outnumbered in the United States by 2042, and social scientists consider that current status among infants a harbinger of the change.

“This is a watershed moment,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in family issues. “It shows us how multicultural we’ve become.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/census-minority-babies-are-now-majority-in-united-states/2012/05/16/gIQA1WY8UU_story.html

― game of crones (La Lechera), Friday, 18 May 2012 15:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

Apologies if this is being discussed elsewhere -- I just thought it was demographics-related so I stuck it here.

― game of crones (La Lechera), Friday, 18 May 2012 15:16 (1 year ago) Permalink