2010 Census will be Important for Latinos

There no doubt that the 2010 Census will be important to Hispanics. According to the Census Burea in 2007, 15.1 percent of the population identified themselves as Hispanic, making them the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group in the U.S. The accurate count of Hispanics is essential in determining federal and state representation in the government for the U.S. Hispanic population, as well as demonstrates it’s the dramatic growth in the last ten years.

Yesterday, President Obama annoucmend that Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire, is his nomineed to head the Commerce Department which hosues the Census Bureau. There has been some discussion as to where Gregg could possibly exercise an important supervisory role in the poll methodology. He could insist on statistical rigor of “headcounts”, instead of the Democratic based “sampling” that the Clinton administration tried to implement as a more accurate method but was haulted by the Republicans.

Headcounts, by and large, tend to undercount minorities an accurate count is important for many reasons, but politically this can result in Democrats gaining Democrats more congressional and state legislative seats.

Today, Telemundo launched A 2010 Census Campaign called “Hazte Contar!” which is a national initiative to increase awareness of the 2010 Census among U.S. Hispanics AND to increase their participation in the process. Telemundo will implement elements of the campaign through various news and entertainment programming on its broadcast network and its Latino youth cable network mun2, even including plans to include The Census in its original telenovelas.
US News and World Report

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