On the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 22-year-old Stephen Galloway invokes the name of the slain civil rights activist to convey the importance of civic engagement to high school students in Columbus, Georgia.
Stephen is an organizer for Fair Count, a nonprofit organization created by Stacey Abrams in hopes of engaging hard-to-count populations in Georgia ahead of the 2020 census. He’s participated in a number of community events in the past few months in hopes of creating awareness around the forthcoming census count. On this day, he stands in front of a group of about 50 students inside Spencer High School’s auditorium and talks to them about the census, as well as political issues they’re concerned about, such as gun violence, the death penalty, college tuition, climate change, and health care.
According to Fair Count, about 26 to 50 percent of Muscogee County, where Stephen is from, is considered “hard to count” for various reasons, though that language is imperfect.
“We don’t really like the phrase 'hard to count.' It’s just that we need to reach [these communities] better,” Stephen tells Teen Vogue. “I think a lot of it comes down to trust. There’s not a lot of trust [in these communities] when it comes to the government.”
At Spencer High School, Stephen talks to six groups of students ranging from freshman to seniors throughout the day. In one group of majority-black students, he explains that black people in America were previously counted as 3/5 of a person, the infamous three-fifths compromise. In the 2020 census, he says, it’s important for everyone to participate and be fully counted.
Although high school students may not receive their own census form, Stephen wants them to understand that they could be advocates within their own homes for completing the census. Students could explain to their families what’s at stake if there is an undercount in their community. They could also help dispel misinformation about the process.
As mandated by the Constitution, every decade the United States conducts a census in an effort to count everyone who is living in the country. The survey helps determine a number of things, including how many U.S. House of Representatives seats each state will have for the next 10 years and funding for crucial programs like Medicare, the federal Pell Grant program, highway planning, and construction, housing and school programs, and much more.
This year is the first time the census will be conducted online for almost all U.S. residents, with the exception of people living in Puerto Rico, those who live in group housing, and those living in homes where the Census Bureau has an incomplete mailing address. You can also fill out a census form via phone or mail. By April 1, the Census Bureau will have mailed the necessary material to complete the questionnaire to households across the U.S.
Ahead of the census count, Fair Count organizers aren’t the only ones aiming to ensure that hard-to-count populations are reached. The Census Bureau aims to include “those for whom a real or perceived barrier exists to full and representative inclusion in the data collection process.”
Maria Olmedo-Malagon, who works at the Census Bureau as the program manager for the 2020 census communications campaign, tells Teen Vogue that those hard-to-count populations include “immigrants, those linguistically isolated people in rural areas, people in urban areas, people who have children under five at home.”
Additionally, while the Census Bureau says conducting the census primarily online is more efficient, some experts say it disadvantages some communities. Manuel Pastor is a University of Southern California professor of sociology, American studies, and ethnicity who helms the school’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity. He tells Teen Vogue, “There's still quite a pretty significant digital divide in terms of access to broadband [within] communities of color, low-income communities, [and] immigrant communities in particular.” College students can also be hard to count.
“[They] should be counted on campus where they live. People should be counted where they live because that is where they're receiving services,” Olmedo-Malagon of the Census Bureau says. “Even if they eventually leave the college campus, they are representing that sample of the community that needs those services. They are not only being counted for them, but they are being counted for the college student that comes after them.”
Census rules for college students are a little tricky. Fair Count’s vice president, Jean Abrams McLean, explains that students who live in campus housing or off-campus housing designated specifically for students won’t have to fill out a census form. But students who live in housing that is not affiliated with their university (including some Greek housing) will have to do so.
As Stephen said, among the reasons communities might be hard to count is a distrust of the government. Ahead of this census count, the Justice Department and Trump administration wanted to add a citizenship question to the form but were permanently blocked by a federal judge. Still, several organizations and experts feel the debate as it has played out publicly has already done “damage” to the census count.
“There's a really big concern that immigrant folks, in particular, are going to be reluctant to fill out the form or to fill it out honestly,” Pastor says. Olmedo-Malagon says the Census Bureau’s efforts include media outreach and partnerships with the goal of informing people that the citizenship question will not be included on the form.
Kelly Percival of the Brennan Center for Justice says they’re trying to spread the word, too, telling Teen Vogue, “One of our primary messages is that it’s safe to fill out the census. None of your personally identifiable information can be shared outside of the four walls of the Census Bureau. The census is really not about law enforcement at all.” She adds that there are no known instances where information from a census form has been shared with other government entities.
Local organizations such as Fair Count have been working to reach these hard-to-count communities, too. In addition to committing to add 150 free internet hotspots throughout Georgia by census day, Fair Count has hired a number of organizers and partnered with several prominent community voices (such as Greek organizations and faith institutions) to spread awareness about the 2020 census.
“We are hiring people who live and work in the actual counties and regions of what we call zones to work as organizers,” McLean says. “Instead of sending people from Atlanta to parachute in and tell y'all why you should be doing the census and why you should trust that, we're getting trusted voices.”
Stephen, a recent college graduate, is one such organizer. McLean says there are other paid jobs available for anyone over 18 who is looking to get involved in census work.
“The Census Bureau has to hire over up to 500,000 census takers across the nation. The average salary for those jobs across the nation is $17.90 per hour. I call it the census side hustle,” she says.
Census enumerators conduct address canvassing, follow-up phone calls, and more. But beyond actual employment, young people can best be utilized as advocates for properly filling out the form.
“It's important for them to understand how the census works, who needs to be counted in your home so that they can relay that information to their parents or even help their parents fill out the form,” McLean says.
Pastor emphasizes that the civic engagement students learn as it pertains to the 2020 census will also be important later this year.
“The muscles that get exercised during the census — indicating to [people] why filling out the form is important, telling them that they need to make sure that they get counted — those are all exactly the sets of civic muscles that we're going to need in November 2020 in order to ensure maximum participation of those who are eligible in the presidential election,” he says. “The census is a little bit like starting to go to the gym and running the first short race before you wind up being in the most important marathon of your life.”
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