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<p>I have seen this repeated often, however only 2.4% of those responding to the 2000 census identified as being more than one race. It will be interesting to see the changes over the past decade.</p>
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I did. One of the first questions was how many people in the household and specifically said not to count students away at school. So I put two. Then when filling out the information for each person, one of the questions is “is this person away at school”? Now how could they be if you just TOLD me not to include that person?</p>
<p>I think it’s a good idea to let the college students fill out their own form. For one, they should be counted where they are. Otherwise college towns are grossly under represented. In the second place, if they are old enough to be in college, they are old enough to fill out their own form.</p>
<p>It’s so great to see the interest in the census…I retired from the Census Bureau after working on every census since 1970, including the early planning of the current one. Seems like everyone has figured out reasonable ways to handle the race and Hispanic origin questions…basically self identification. In response to mommusic, the categories are basically dictated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), mostly because of the needs of various funding programs.</p>
<p>Students in college housing will be counted as individuals…they will get an Individual Census Report, which they will return in a sealed envelop to a census worker. Those in other housing will get (should have already gotten) the same form we get in the mail. To the extent possible, the Bureau will try to visit nonresponding students before they depart for home or elsewhere for the summer, but that is always tricky business. </p>
<p>Counting students at school is often controversial, as is counting prisoners where they stay instead of in the jurisdiction they came from. But these rules have repeatedly been upheld by the courts. Boarding school students, by the way, are counted at home.</p>
<p>The students will get census forms, and the census workers will work with the universities to get a proper count by going door to door. </p>
<p>As for the race question, Hispanics can be White or Black so that is why they ask the first question, then you can check more than one on the second as well.</p>
<p>Donna–this really worries me. NJ is a net exporter of college students. We’re already in a fiscal disaster; now our kids are going to be counted in other people’s states???</p>
<p>As a genealogy buff, it was huge to me to be able to look up old census records online. I hope all the faux-scares of Oh-Noes-Teh-Census won’t dissuade people from filling it out truthfully and honestly.</p>
<p>Re Q #1 and #2 - I had the same reaction - and it was unclear that if you did indicate you had someone else per Question 2 (such as a live-in babysitter or housekeeper), whether they got the “full treatment” questions.</p>
<p>But I thought it was easy to indicate multi races (though irrelevant for my family, since we are all white).</p>
<p>May I encourage the purists among us to state only the number of people in the household, and nothing more? Court extrapolations aside, I don’t read anything in the Constitution that authorizes the Federal government to do anything more than count the number of people. How can it be in the interests of the government—legally bound not to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, et cetera—to know anything more about me and my family than the simple fact that we exist?</p>
<p>Don’t you think it’s important to have a census of how many people are of what race, religion, age groups, etc.? (My form only asked race) I mean, wouldn’t it be kind of embarrassing to say that the greatest country in the world doesn’t even know what % of its population is such-and-such age, or is Catholic, or whatever? How can anyone – government or private business – possibly predict any demographic trends without, well, demographics?</p>
<p>My business is heavily dependent on census trends to project important things – demands for medications that are associated with aging, as an example. To think that this source would dry up is crazy.</p>
<p>They ask you for your situation as of April 1, 2010. I told my wife, we can’t fill this out until April 1 because we don’t know who may or may not be here on that date, or even if we will be alive on that date. If your student is home visiting on April 1, then you include the student, and mention that student is also away at college. My son is a student but lives in an apartment so he will have to fill out his own (dxxx) form. Other son is living with us and will likely be included in my form (on April 1).</p>
<p>omg!!! They are idiots!!! LOL
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There goes my theory about visiting student… This census thing is harder than it looks!!</p>
<p>What’s the point of asking the race? What difference does it make? Are we ever going to at least attempt to be race blind? And if they ‘are’ going to ask for race then why not a bunch of other attributes like religion, age, marital status, divorce stats, house size, income bracket, net worth, highest level of education attained, number of kids in college, whether ESL or ENL (not spoken at all), whether a legal resident or not, what country one’s from if an immigrant legal or otherwise, and the list goes on and on. Of course if we received one like that we probably wouldn’t tolerate it and just throw it out or not answer most of the questions. Why the big focus on race or rather, the racial or ethnic group or heritage one associates oneself with?</p>
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<p>Well, I thank God that my ancestors overcame their fear of the “feds” enough to give answers to the old questions “where were you born” and the name of every person in the household. I have been able to trace a lot of geneology (and back through Texas and Tennessee hillbillies who might have been afraid of the “feds”.<br>
If you are somehow offended by some of the questions, can you just answer the others?</p>
<p>ucsd dad - way back in the 1980 census, we got the “long form” - wow, that was way before anyone worried about information privacy - there were questions about number of flush toilets in your household…
I thought that the race question was handled pretty much like you might expect : check all of the boxes that apply. I was sorely tempted to just hit them all. Alas, I am 100% euro white girl.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s so threatening about giving this information. It’s not used to personally identify you. What on earth is the big deal? What on earth is the objection to the government knowing these things in aggregate? If they were handing out yellow stars to certain races or religions, one would have a basis to object.</p>
<p>Dragonmom - Yes - it seems that I remember longer forms and was surprised this one basically just wants to know your race which leads me to wonder - why do they feel that it’s so important to ask the question? I assume there’s money or votes associated with it somehow.</p>
<p>PG - My point is that if they ask the race then why not the other questions and if they don’t ask the other questions then why ask the race?</p>
<p>I have gotten multiple e-mails from my college saying that I should not be counted as living at my home, but at the college. However, I did count myself in question 2 (people not included in the total) of the form for my home. I’ll fill out the one for my school when I get back from break. I want to fill out the long form, but apparently we will only be given the short forms.</p>
<p>I can understand why race is still being asked and is being asked of every person and that is because race is still a very visible issue/topic of conversation in the US no matter how much many of us wish it wasn’t. I haven’t looked at the long forms of previous censuses, but there is a possibility that asking about religion would not bring accurate results because family members could have different religions and the person filing out the form may not recognize this, or people may not list their true religion despite the notices that responses are confidential. Back to race, I didn’t notice a box that said “I choose not to self-identify,” which many would like to mark. There is/was also the issue of gay couples not being counted, although I did notice the box for unmarried partner.</p>
<p>It kind of hit me in the gut when I realized we only have two people living in this household since D1 is on her own now, and D2 pretty much stays at college year round. I guess it somehow solidified the fact that we’re empty nesters.</p>
<p>OK, here’s one for you. D2 is coming home for Easter… you guessed it, on April 1st. However, her plane lands at 10:59PM, so by the time she gets to our house, it will be about midnight.</p>
<p>On the other hand, H and I will be out of town, arriving back the next day, so officially, “count who is sleeping in your house on April 1st” is very complicated for us; it depends on whether or not her flight is on time! Also, we have a house-sitter who will be staying here while we’re gone and leave the morning following D2’s arrival. Who’d thunk it could be so complicated?</p>
<p>So I basically ignored it all, pretended that H and I will be here that night, D2 is still at school, and there is no house-sitter. Take that Census Bureau! (I already mailed mine back in today)</p>
<p>I think counting students who live in dorms on campus as living in that city is stupid. It’s just a way for college towns to boost their population numbers…perhaps to get more aid or something.</p>
<p>Here are the official federal definitions of the race categories used throughout the federal government: </p>
<p>[Black</a> or African American persons, percent, 2000](<a href=“http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm]Black”>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm) </p>
<p>Here is the official guide to the questions on this year’s form: </p>
<p><a href=“http://2010.census.gov/2010census/how/interactive-form.php[/url]”>http://2010.census.gov/2010census/how/interactive-form.php</a> </p>
<p>Note that race has been asked about (not always with the same form of question) since 1790. This is an old question. But some of the categories have only existed since after I was born. </p>
<p>P.S. Federal government surveys appear NEVER to ask about religion. That is information that is gained by private surveys, if at all, in the United States. </p>
<p>In my signature block is a link to the latest thread on how this all relates to college admission:</p>
<p>mom2collegekids–well, yes and no.</p>
<p>On the one hand, those 20,000 kids who only live in town 3/4s of the year have no stake in who is elected to city council or what the local school system should look like. OTOH, those kids do have a tremendous impact on infrastructure needs, public safety, and so forth. And they pay local and sales tax.</p>
<p>Some kids do vote locally, others maintain their registration at home. And of course, many do not vote at all.</p>
<p>Comment on an earlier post: I lived in a dorm in 1980 and I remember being counted in the dorm head count rather than the “my family’s house” head count. (I’ve always been interested in data collection.)</p>