The census officially starts April 1, but the Census Bureau will send out invitations to complete the survey online starting Thursday. Univision this week unveiled a bilingual effort that includes free kits composed of videos and printed materials with “Sesame Street” characters to underscore the importance of counting children in the census.
It’s part of a multiplatform campaign the network has been running for over a year urging Latino residents to take part in the survey. Children are among the groups most often undercounted in the federal survey, directly leading to overcrowded schools as federal dollars are disproportionately assigned to populations with higher census participation rates.
The Univision campaign also includes PSAs on its national network, as well as local ads and news stories and a digital campaign. “Univision’s Cuenta Conmigo campaign, which has been working to demonstrate the importance of the Census for over a year, is a continuation of our company’s commitment to inform and empower Hispanic America,” said Univision Senior Vice President Ron Estrada.
“We’re activating across the nation to urge our community to be counted in the Census as invitations to participate are mailed out this month. At stake is funding for healthcare, education, infrastructure, and other issues in addition to proportional representation,” he added.
Lawmakers have praised private organizations such as Univision for taking part in promoting the census while criticizing what they see as lukewarm promotion efforts on the part of the Trump administration. “I wish that the federal government and the state governments were as committed as they had been in the past to a fair census count, that’s obviously not the case at this point under the Trump administration,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).
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