SEVERAL New York (NY)-based Guyanese have been fanning the communities where Guyanese are settled imploring them to fill out their census forms and return them quickly to the government.  The deadline is April 1 and the forms have been arriving at homes since Monday from the Census Bureau. Many people do not understand the purpose of the census fearing the government will use the information against them.  Two individuals with MA degrees told they don’t want the government to know their business and don’t plan to return them. That is a crime. The government is not poking into anyone’s business.  All they want is a count based on ethnicity and gender and whether we own or our home or rent. Various ethnicities are identified. Afro-Guyanese fall under African Americans.  Indo-Guyanese fall under Asian Indians.  We are asking them to write Indo-Caribbean under the Asian Indian category.
The census is extremely important to every Guyanese in America and no information on the form can be used against anyone.  The info on the form is strictly confidential and is sued only to count the population. No information on the form can be divulged to any other government agency.
Filling out the form is mandatory and is a violation of the law if it is not returned. The purpose of the census count is to get an accurate count of the number of people in the nation and their background. Resources, government funding, and political representation in the various legislatures of city, state and national legislatures are determined by the census data.  The higher the count, the greater is the number of seats of governments allotted to the community.  The info will be used for redistricting of constituencies and can lead to the election of one of our own to office.
The census data also inform the federal government how to allocate more than $400 billion in grants to communities for development. The data affect funding for school budgets, including the building of schools, free school meals, college tuition grant and student loans, construction of public parks, pick up of garbage, etc. When one person is not counted, the community could potentially lose up to fifty thousand dollars over the next ten years.  And there will be no way of correcting the unreported population until Mar 2020. Guyanese were severely undercounted in the 1990 and 2000 censuses because of fear of immigration status, illegal apartments, confusion surrounding ethnicity, etc., and did not fill out and return the forms.
Some Guyanese have been employed by the Census Bureau to boost participation in their communities in filling out the forms.  People like me are unpaid individuals who are writing in local NY papers and going around encouraging West Indians to fill and return the census. The goal is to increase participation including for infants and illegal immigrants so we get our fair share of tax revenues for our communities.
In addition to the census count, there is also a sample form sent to some individuals at random for an assessment on several social and economic issues.  This was due last month. It can still be returned. If the forms are not sent back, the Census Bureau will send officers to the home to inquire why they were not returned.
It is important that everyone living in the home, regardless of status, even if visiting from another country, fill out the form.  There is no question about immigration status.  Thus, one need not fear that the government will know about someone’s whereabouts. The info on the form is strictly for the purpose of counting the population for political representation and is not shared with any other branch of the government.