Notes From the Field
Photo by Brian McCabe
WHY THE 2020 CENSUS MATTERS TO LATINOS
Hansi Lo Wang is probably now the most prominent member of a small community of nerds.
Census nerds form a comparatively small community. Rarer still are census nerds who can translate demographic science and the complicated mess that’s the 2020 census into stories anyone can understand.
Based in New York City, Wang is a national correspondent for National Public Radio. His beat: the people, power and money behind the 2020 census. Sounds like a snoozer? Well, listen here.
For Latinos, the federal government’s official count of everyone living within the borders of the United States is of paramount importance in 2020. Voting clout and the distribution of federal tax revenue are at stake. But a proposed—and for now rejected—question about citizenship status could have kept untold numbers from participating in the count, and diluted the Latino vote, just as it’s emerging as the nation’s largest ethnic minority.
Wang saw that early on and jumped on the story, turning the census into a dynamic beat. He broke major stories that chronicled the Trump administration’s efforts to push through the citizenship question, the suspicion that it was a covert attempt to scare many Latinos from participating, and the controversy over lesser-known questions that could muddle the country’s official count of one of the fastest growing racial or ethnic communities.
Wang won the Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award from the American Statistical Association for his work. For this census nerd, that almost tops the other accolades that have come his way from the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association.
In 2010, Wang came to NPR via a Kroc fellowship for promising public media journalists. He became a production assistant on the Weekend Edition show and then reported on race and ethnicity for the network’s groundbreaking Code Switch team. Here’s Wang’s take on the impact of the 2020 census on the Latino community. (The interview was edited for length and clarity):
Q: What pointed you to the census—specifically the proposed changes to the surveys—as a story that needed almost full-time attention?
A: I was originally assigned to cover the changing demographics of the U.S. and I knew from my time as a reporter on NPR’s Code Switch team that the U.S. Census is what drives the country’s understanding of demographics.
Yes, I know it can sound boring, bureaucratic, not particularly newsy. But if you think that way, I’d say you probably don’t understand what the Census is really about. It’s about people, power and money, which I find fascinating. I knew that a few years before the 2020 census, the federal government anticipated making big decisions about what questions to ask and other potential changes, and that these changes could have major implications on political representation, on federal funding, and on how we as people living in the U.S. understand who we are.
I’ve been tracking all of these decisions full-time since 2017. It’s become my only beat because there’s so much to cover and understand once you start digging in. A lot of what’s happening is flying below the radar of most people. And, as a journalist, it’s been fun trying to decode public meetings and government reports on the Census.
Q: Census questions affect everyone, for sure, but what is it about the proposed changes that seem to single out U.S. Latinos? What is it that has political advocates so concerned about the suggested census changes?
A: The biggest proposed change to the census that most people have heard about is the citizenship question sought by the Trump administration. You won’t see that question on the 2020 census forms, though, because the courts blocked it.
I covered the legal battle over that question for more than a year, and Latinx political advocates I talked to were especially worried that including the question would depress census participation in Latinx communities. That would have had long-term consequences on political representation, not to mention access to federal funding.
Another proposed change to the 2020 census hasn’t gotten as much attention. It’s about the Hispanic origin and race questions that are on the census forms. Standards for federal surveys set by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget require that the question about Latinx identity be separate from the race question that’s intended to capture the range of racial identities within the Latinx community.
Some Latinx political advocates and Census Bureau researchers are concerned that continuing this format harms the accuracy of census data because, in recent decades, more Latinx people have checked the “some other race” box to answer the race question. The bureau proposed a solution that would have asked about Latinx identity and race in a combined question, but the White House did not make a public decision on that proposal in time.
So, the 2020 census may show “some other race” again as the third largest racial group after white and black. Some advocates worry this will make it difficult to understand, through census data, what’s really happening with one of the fastest-growing racial or ethnic groups in the country.
Q: What was it that turned the controversy against the administration’s position on the changes? It’s almost as though they were like kids, discovered with their hands in the cookie jar ... I mean, the apparent motivation behind the survey changes seemed clear, right?
A: The citizenship question was struck down by the courts in large part because multiple judges, including a majority of the U.S Supreme Court, did not buy the administration’s stated justification for adding the citizen question. The administration claimed that it wanted to get more detailed citizenship data to better protect voting rights of racial and language minorities, even though as part of the lawsuits, a then-Justice Department official testified last year that adding the question to census forms is not necessary for enforcing the Voting Rights Act.
A federal judge in New York ultimately called this justification a “sham,” and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion that it appears to be “contrived.” It’s interesting that since the Trump administration backed down on pushing for the question in July, officials, including President Trump, have not brought up the Voting Rights Act when they talk about why they’re moving forward with alternative ways of producing detailed data about the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in the country. They mainly say that they’ve ordered the Census Bureau to compile government records on citizenship to produce data that states can use when they redraw voting districts after the 2020 census. The idea is that this kind of citizenship data can be used to draw voting districts in a way that a prominent GOP strategist, Thomas Hofeller, concluded could give Republicans and non-Hispanic white people a political advantage.
Q: Is the controversy settled? Do you suspect the questions about citizenship will be proposed again at some point?
A: This is all far from settled. There’s no citizenship question on the 2020 census, but I’m watching to see if and how the Census Bureau can produce the vital citizenship data using government records. Then, it’s an open legal question about whether state or local redistricting officials can use this data to redraw political maps beginning in 2021.
There’s also a part of the executive order about citizenship data President Trump issued in July that directs the commerce secretary, who oversees the Census Bureau, to look into ways of adding a citizenship question to 2030 census forms. I’m still trying to figure out what all of this means.
Q: You worked at NPR’s Code Switch and you’ve been on the leading edge for coverage of inequality for NPR ... What has brought you to this point in your career? Do you plan on staying with the census project, or, will you now redirect your focus onto something else?
A: I joked on the Code Switch podcast recently with my colleague Shereen Marisol Meraji that I’m a census nerd for life. I think it’s safe to say I won’t need to issue a correction for that statement. The census beat has given me a front-row seat to how we form the foundations of democracy in the U.S. It’s been a way to uncover the roots of how we understand who we are as people living in this country.
There shouldn’t be an exclusive club of census nerds. Everyone living in the U.S. should understand how this all works. It affects our present and future. And this story doesn’t end in 2020. If my reporting can help more people see that, you’ll have a hard time tearing me away from the census beat.