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The U.S. Census Bureau is gearing up to launch a special campaign aimed at contacting Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders — communities that are considered undercounted and hard to count. Read more

The U.S. Census Bureau is gearing up to launch a special campaign aimed at contacting Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders — communities that are considered undercounted and hard to count.

The bureau has hired a Native Hawaiian-owned company to market the 2020 census to more than 1.3 million Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders across the country.

And a Hawaii-based committee with representatives from major native organizations has been formed to connect with Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in Hawaii.

At a Honolulu news conference Friday, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Kathleen Styles said that although Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are among the fastest-growing communities in the country, they are estimated to be undercounted by the 2010 census by 1.3%.

“It’s definitely a community we wanted to focus on,” said Styles, the bureau’s chief of decennial communications and stakeholder relations. “1.3% may not sound like a lot, but when you take into account the fact that well over $675 billion is distributed over the decade based on the census, every point matters.”

The U.S. Constitution mandates a national population count every 10 years. Census statistics are used to determine the number of seats each state holds in the U.S. House of Representatives and inform how state, local and federal lawmakers will allocate billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities every year for the next decade.

The census is set to begin in March, and the bureau is ramping up recruitment efforts to hire some 500,000 people nationwide.

The Honolulu office is working to fill up 3,100 jobs in the next 60 days, officials said. The jobs, which include census takers and office personnel, pay between $20 and $22.50 an hour.

The Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Complete Count Committee is made up of representatives from Kamehameha Schools, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Queen Lili‘uokalani Trust and other large Native organizations.

Chairman Kuhio Lewis said the committee will spend close to $1 million in “a very aggressive” campaign to make sure Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders engage in the census.

Lewis said the group has identified nearly 15,000 homes that are considered hard to count. “To the extent that we can, we plan to knock on every one of those doors,” he said.

“We have already given out over $100,000 to community organizations. So we’re revving our engine right now, preparing for the census to come before us,” he said.

“This is important to us because at the end of the day, we want to make sure the feds continue to roll their money toward Native Hawaiians so that we can support the work to build our communities,” said Lewis, who is also CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.

“Organizations like mine are extremely dependent on resources that trickle down from the federal government, from the state government. So we want to make sure those resources from the feds continue to trickle down.”

John Aeto, founder of the Kalaimoku Group, the marketing company hired by the Census Bureau, said four focus groups were convened in preparation for launching a messaging campaign to Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in Hawaii and all the other states.

Some 45% of the nation’s 1.3 million Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders live in Hawaii, while the other 55% live on the mainland.

The focus groups indicated awareness of the census is low.

“So many of our Pacific Islander cousins come from island groups where there has never been a census. So when they come to America, this is their first exposure to what that is,” Aeto said.

Additionally, feedback indicated the best way to communicate to islanders is through trusted voices in their communities. Research also pointed to the use of island music and culture.

“So we tried to integrate that as much as possible into the messaging of the ad campaign,” he said

Aeto said the firm is using “a sniper effect” to reach islanders on the mainland, working with partners to compile mailing lists from their memberships.

A message that the census is safe, easy and confidential will go directly through the mail to 240,000 mainland households in hopes of reaching 720,000 individuals in the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community, he said.

The Kalaimoku Group produced a variety of commercials featuring trusted voices, including Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson, recording artist and kumu hula Keali‘i Reichel, football star Marcus Mariota and University of Hawaii Hawaiian studies professor Jon Osorio.

An elaborately produced musical video, unveiled at Friday’s news conference, features islander musical artists from Hawaii and across the mainland.

“We wanted to showcase our pride and our heritage, and we are now part of this great country,” Aeto said.

Aeto said his firm reached out to Hawaiians who favor an independent nation and therefore might be less apt to participate in the U.S. effort.

“Regardless of your political belief of where the United States stands, the message we got from the independence community was: As long as the United States is here, we’re driving on the roads, our kids are going to the schools, our kids need the free SNAP lunch, so we’re going to participate in the census. We’ll leave the political questions to the political pundits.”