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About 775,000, or 1.5 percent of the nation’s Latinos are “missing” from the overall Latino count in the latest 2010 census. This is just a sampling, the numbers could be higher. “I think it is very troubling that you still have that differentiation,” says Angelo Falcón, a member of the Census’ National Advisory Committee for Racial, Ethnic and other Populations and President of the National Institute for Latino Policy.

“After putting so much money and resources to make sure the Latino population is adequately counted, the fact that under-counting is still a problem is troubling,” he adds.

Census Director Robert Groves said that “while the overall coverage of the census was exemplary, the traditional hard-to-count groups, like renters, were counted less well.” In addition, Groves added, “because ethnic and racial minorities disproportionately live in hard-to-count circumstances, they too were under-counted relative to the majority population,” he added.

Falcón, a political scientist who chaired the former Census Advising Committee, says the Census has spent a large amount of resources to ensure Hispanics are not undercounted. He says, however, it is a good time now for “lessons learned” to make sure this does not happen again.

Some recommendations, Falcón says, include more advertising in local community papers which serve minority populations, as well as better strategies to work with local community groups. The 2010 Census listed more partnerships with community organizations. Falcón says more strategies are needed to make sure these groups are working appropriately to reach all their communities’ Latinos.

“We have to make sure we study the 2010 census and learn how to make the next one more effective,” he says.

SANDRA LILLEY, NBC LATINO STAFF

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