Potential voters and Quinault Indian Nation leadership rally in Taholah, Grays Harbor County, on Oct. 29, 2018. Tribal leaders encourage Native Americans to vote in upcoming elections as a means to be represented as a voting block. This year, leaders are again encouraging tribal members to participate in the U.S. census and for the government to do a better job in creating a more accurate count. (Dorothy Edwards/Crosscut)

How undercounting happens

In the past, the Census Bureau has called historically undercounted populations “hard to count” communities. But Elsa Batres-Boni, the census strategic adviser with the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, said calling them “undercounted” paints a better picture.

“When the census uses ‘hard to count,’ it puts the blame on the people,” she said. “It’s not that people don’t want to participate. When we call it historically undercounted, we put the attention on the barriers to participation.”

Those barriers differ from community to community, sometimes including language barriers, lack of access to the internet or a simple lack of information. After all, it’s easy to forget the details for something that happens only once every 10 years. Batres-Boni said these barriers are currently being exacerbated by the coronavirus outbreak, which has caused community organizations throughout Washington to cancel in-person outreach events.

Even so, the work to boost numbers in underrepresented communities began long before the virus struck. The Census Bureau kicked off early efforts for the census in January in Alaska, focusing on Alaska Native communities three months before everyone else. The bureau also employed Native census liaisons in Washington and other states in order to get better insight on what could boost Native participation.

The reasons for low participation are complicated, but tribal liaison and Quinault Indian Nation member Alaina Capoeman said it often comes down to the government’s historic relationship with tribes, which in the past has included all kinds of oppression. Capoeman said it’s important for tribes to see people working for the Census Bureau who hold their values and reflect their needs.

“We want more people who look like these communities, so some of that fear and uneasiness is alleviated,” Capoeman said. “And so they feel safe enough to answer these questions.”

Native people don’t have to prove tribal membership in order to mark themselves as “American Indian or Alaska Native” in the census, which is one of the first things Capoeman tells people when visiting Native communities. In the census, race is completely self-identified.

“We’re so used to having to prove who we are,” she said. “But in the census, it’s not so much proving that — it’s who do you think you are.”

Funding bolstered by an accurate census count will help tribes like the Quinault and others along the peninsula that are getting ready to move due to rising waters that have put their reservations in flood zones, Capoeman said.

Capoeman and other census liaisons partnered with tribes to educate Native communities on how to prepare for the census through the Rez2Rez Voter Registration and Census Rally tour, which was led by Lummi activist and Councilmember Freddie Lane. The tour has been postponed for the time being by the coronavirus outbreak, but in the stops it has made so far, it was a chance to educate and encourage people to participate in both the election and the census. It’s similar to a tour that came before it: In 2018, Quinault Indian Nation President Fawn Sharp led a tour to rally the Native vote in time for midterm elections.

“The year my grandparents were born in the 1890s, they weren’t even recognized as U.S. citizens,” Lane said. “We’ve come a long way with our abilities to mobilize.”

For all undercounted communities, Batres-Boni said what’s important for them to know is that the information taken in the census is completely confidential. Concerns about information from the census questionnaire leaking and negatively impacting the person filling it out are common, she said. Conversations last year about adding a citizenship question to the questionnaire are one example of that. While the citizenship question didn’t make it to the final questionnaire, Batres-Boni saidt she’s made sure to relay that information to communities she talks to, as many aren’t aware it was taken out.

In general, Batres-Boni said her work means telling people why these numbers are so important. Children, for example, are the most undercounted age group, and Batres-Boni said parents sometimes don’t realize the significance of having a child left uncounted. When doing outreach, she reminds them that this count will be official until the next census in 10 years, so it’s important that they’re represented now.

“If a kid wasn’t counted, that kid is not represented for another 10 years,” she said. It’s the same for other communities: If you’re not represented now, the results excluding you will continue to define where federal money goes and how areas are politically represented for years to come.