It's time to stand up and be counted. Or rather to sit down and fill out your Census form.
I suppose having the government ask a few questions every 10 years shouldn't be a big deal. As Jack Kennedy once said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
Filling out a form is one thing you can do for your country. But one look at it -- and I've only seen the comparatively harmless 'short' form -- makes one ask: "Do I have to answer these? Why? What information are they trying to gather and use?"
We're told that complete and accurate responses ensure that communities across our great nation receive all the financial resources they deserve.
However, a review of the questions raises concerns about relevancy to public funding. The government wants to know whether your child is adopted or natural. That's an irrelevant distinction which intrudes into citizens' privacy. What's its purpose? How could community funding revolve around that?
But our Commerce Department has outdone itself with ethnic and racial group standing. There are nine separate Asian and Pacific Islander subcategories plus two more catchall boxes marked "Other Asian" and "Other Pacific Islander."
Imagine that. Why the rather intense scrutiny of the origins of our Asian citizens? Are there specific aid programs for adopted children of Vietnamese or natural born children of Korean residents?
There must be logic for this. I doubt that government staffers standing around the water cooler decided to single out Chinese and omit Burmese or Laotians. It would be nice if this obligatory survey had a brief -- and meaningful -- explanation of its purpose and use. Tell us how the information helps divvy up the federal fiscal pie.
Today's concepts of race and ethnicity never cease to amaze me. Of course, any person should feel rightly proud of her heritage and race however that's defined. But we've come up with some strange delineations.
The short Census form has 20 -- yes, 20! -- different boxes for race or ethnicity or heritage or whatever these classifications are intended to capture.
A closer look shows one box for "White," one for "Black, African American or Negro," and another for "American Indian or Alaska Native." However, the latter asks respondents to provide the name of their "enrolled or principal tribe."
There are five boxes for "Spanish/Hispanic/Latino" of which one is for 'other' with a request to identify your group. As mentioned earlier, Asian and Pacific Islanders top the list with 11 boxes which request the surveyee to supply a 'race' if it's not Filipino or Hawaiian or one of the other seven identified 'races' (?). Is Hawaiian a race? Korean? Asian Indian?
Can there be a multiplicity of Asian races but only one white or black one?
Why not have racial and ethnic categories for all of the nearly 300 countries in the world? Or why not list the thousands of groups of differing nationalities or linguistic dialects or ethnic enclaves? You'd have a form as long as an extra large roll of Charmin toilet tissue with comparable purpose and utility.
Am I concerned? Nah! I've figured out the whole thing. I'm checking one of the several boxes marked 'other' and letting God and country know my unique and very special racial and ethnic group: Irish Swede.
I wonder. How much federal funding will my answer bring to Palm Coast? After all, we Swedes have needs.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M. Ed.
Approximately 580 words.
(c) 2000