Have You Mailed Your Census?

I just finished filling out ours now that we are past April 1st . At first I was going to just answer the first question, "How many people were living in your home on April 1st 2010"
Because that's the only question you are required by the constitution to answer. But I went ahead and answered the rest.

I had a problem with the question of "Race". My husband is not White, Black, or Hispanic. He is dark complicated because he is Italian. So I had to go with "Other" and write in Italian. He would have been ok with "Latin", but that wasn't an option on the form because they use the word "Latino".

Same with my boy's, they are like Obama and are half Italian and half Irish, so I had to do the same with them.

I mean dark complexions do trump white in this country.

Sent mine in shortly after it came.

abasketclayse wrote:

Sent mine in shortly after it came.

I didn't because it asked "How many people were living in your home on April 1st 2010"

I just figured it wasn't supposed to be sent in until after the 1st.

Mailed it a couple of weeks ago. I'm puzzled as to why they offer African-American, Black, and Negro. Aren't they all the same?

I filled it out and mailed it in the same day it arrived. Unless I kicked the bucket, one person living here would still be one person living here regardless of the date.

The race stuff is definitely very confusing. I was watching some people talking about it on one of the cable news shows and I was still confused.

Let's be realistic, the people they *really* want to know the numbers of are the people who got into the country illegally....and they're not going to fill it out.

I was also perturbed that they mailed a notice a week before it came that it was coming and now have sent a follow-up reminder to fill it out and mail it in. What a huge waste of money!

I not only filled mine out and sent it in the day I got it. Because like Joey said even on April 1st there is still only going to be one person here. Thought about putting my cats on there lol. But I also filled out about 50 of them for my clients. And you all think the question of race is confusing for us, try filling them out for my clients who are Asian, but come from Burma, although many of them want to be known as Karen not Burmese, and get offended if you put in Burmese and not Karen. Now that's all confusing.

I like what one of the guys said on Wanda Sykes show the other day "let's do away with the question of race and just put HUMAN".

We never even got one. I was kind of worried about it when I started to see commercials on TV about getting it mailed in by April 1st. I asked my husband about it and he didn't know anything about it either. I don't know what happened to ours, but we never received it.
But today I got a visit from someone from the Census Bureau. He had a laptop with him so I invited him in and we sat at my dining room table while he questioned me and I gave him the answers. It was a very pleasant visit actually. He was a very entertaining man. It seemed like every question I answered reminded him of a story so it was a very interesting afternoon. He was kind of funny. I wasn't doing anything when he showed up anyway. It had been a lazy day and I hadn't done a thing except sleep off and on. But he brought some life to my day and I was wide awake in no time.

I'm acutally working for our local census bureau....

the thing about the April 1st, date is just they needed to have a set date, to prepare a report "for the president"
to say "on such and such date" there where "xyz" people counted so far...a sort of mid-term report card of sorts

they won't have the entire thing completed for months.

regarding the questions about race/ethic....
we take that data at my "permanant" job too
(providing special education services to preschoolers)
using federal and state funds....
ONE of the reasons we do it, is we are required to prove that we are not descriminating against anyone by, for example, assigning all the black students to Ms. Jones...
or not assigning any hispanic children to Mr. Smith...
There's all kinds of reasons the Census needs that info.

African American, Black and Negro do seem, to ME to "all be the same" but I've also learned that people who might describe themselves with one or more of those categories often prerfer one over the other....
and for instance, I remember once, there was a girl who competed in the Olympics as an ice skater...her skin color was "black" but her mother was French and white skinned...
so while she might be "black" she was NOT African American

Cherie wrote:

We never even got one. I was kind of worried about it when I started to see commercials on TV about getting it mailed in by April 1st. I asked my husband about it and he didn't know anything about it either. I don't know what happened to ours, but we never received it.
But today I got a visit from someone from the Census Bureau. He had a laptop with him so I invited him in and we sat at my dining room table while he questioned me and I gave him the answers. It was a very pleasant visit actually. He was a very entertaining man. It seemed like every question I answered reminded him of a story so it was a very interesting afternoon. He was kind of funny. I wasn't doing anything when he showed up anyway. It had been a lazy day and I hadn't done a thing except sleep off and on. But he brought some life to my day and I was wide awake in no time.

Cherie - Are you sure he was from the Census? They aren't supposed to be coming out in person until after May 1st.

I didn't see anywhere on the Census where it said it needed to be back by April 1st. I took the reference to April 1st to mean it should be filled out after that date.

When I read the question that asked "How Many People Are In You Household On April 1st 2010" I figured it wasn't supposed to be filled out until after April 1.

I mean I have had my grown son suddenly move back home pretty much out of the blue. I am sure that happens to other families.

Also, I thought they had scraped the computer because there were problems so they were supposed to be doing it by form and using a pencil.

It was all over the news about the millions wasted on these computers that had to be ditched.

I did call one of our Senators office's and they said people weren't supposed to be going door to door until May.

I hope you are all very careful when opening the door and inviting these strangers in your homes. It's not far fetched to be thinking that people with ill intent could pose as a census worker to catch you off guard and that's when you can be taken advantage of.

DipsyArkie wrote:

I'm acutally working for our local census bureau....

the thing about the April 1st, date is just they needed to have a set date, to prepare a report "for the president"
to say "on such and such date" there where "xyz" people counted so far...a sort of mid-term report card of sorts

they won't have the entire thing completed for months.

regarding the questions about race/ethic....
we take that data at my "permanant" job too
(providing special education services to preschoolers)
using federal and state funds....
ONE of the reasons we do it, is we are required to prove that we are not descriminating against anyone by, for example, assigning all the black students to Ms. Jones...
or not assigning any hispanic children to Mr. Smith...
There's all kinds of reasons the Census needs that info.

African American, Black and Negro do seem, to ME to "all be the same" but I've also learned that people who might describe themselves with one or more of those categories often prerfer one over the other....
and for instance, I remember once, there was a girl who competed in the Olympics as an ice skater...her skin color was "black" but her mother was French and white skinned...
so while she might be "black" she was NOT African American

That skater you are referring to is French herself. Her mother is White, but they are both French. She doesn't even speak English.

Cherie glad the guy brought some entertainment into your life for the day, but I to hope he really was from the Census. I heard on the news the other day that someone was sending out false Census reports asking for people's SSNs and that is not something they collect.

I'm still filling the darn things out for my clients, I'm ready for them to disappear (the forms, not my clients) lol. Some of them have even come in asking for them saying they haven't received one yet. I told them there was nothing they could do but wait and if they didn't receive one someone will come to their door later to ask them the questions, I say good luck to the person that has to visit this area and visit all the people who do not speak English or Spanish.

Janey wrote:

Cherie wrote:

We never even got one. I was kind of worried about it when I started to see commercials on TV about getting it mailed in by April 1st. I asked my husband about it and he didn't know anything about it either. I don't know what happened to ours, but we never received it.
But today I got a visit from someone from the Census Bureau. He had a laptop with him so I invited him in and we sat at my dining room table while he questioned me and I gave him the answers. It was a very pleasant visit actually. He was a very entertaining man. It seemed like every question I answered reminded him of a story so it was a very interesting afternoon. He was kind of funny. I wasn't doing anything when he showed up anyway. It had been a lazy day and I hadn't done a thing except sleep off and on. But he brought some life to my day and I was wide awake in no time.

Cherie - Are you sure he was from the Census? They aren't supposed to be coming out in person until after May 1st.

I didn't see anywhere on the Census where it said it needed to be back by April 1st. I took the reference to April 1st to mean it should be filled out after that date.

When I read the question that asked "How Many People Are In You Household On April 1st 2010" I figured it wasn't supposed to be filled out until after April 1.

I mean I have had my grown son suddenly move back home pretty much out of the blue. I am sure that happens to other families.

Also, I thought they had scraped the computer because there were problems so they were supposed to be doing it by form and using a pencil.

It was all over the news about the millions wasted on these computers that had to be ditched.

I did call one of our Senators office's and they said people weren't supposed to be going door to door until May.

I hope you are all very careful when opening the door and inviting these strangers in your homes. It's not far fetched to be thinking that people with ill intent could pose as a census worker to catch you off guard and that's when you can be taken advantage of.

I thought of this too and was kind of worried about it at first, but he seemed to have all of the right credentials. He was wearing a badge, the looked like a police badge but a little smaller. His shirt had the words Census Bureau printed on the left hand pocket and he gave me a card with his name and the address and phone number of the office.

The top left hand corner of the card said:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
U.S. Census Bureau
4 Copley Place, Suite 301
Boston, Ma. 02116

Then in the middle of the card was his name and under that it said Field Representative

In the lower right hand corner it said:

Office: 800-562-5721
Home: I shouldn't give out his home number
www.census.gov

On the other side of the card it said U.S. Census Bureau
with a round seal above that saying Department of Commerce around the top and United States of America around the bottom.

He was an older gentleman, very friendly and never once made me feel uncomfortable. He had the Census form with him and showed me what I should've received which was the long version and also showed me another one page short version. I'm not sure what the difference was or why there were two different ones. I've never had anyone come to the house before, but because we didn't turn one in, I didn't give it much thought at all.
Now that I think of some of the things we talked about, I do get a weird feeling. I'm hoping he was just friendly and making conversation. He asked me many questions elated to the Census but kept getting sidetracked. Something I'd say would trigger a memory so he told me many stories. But at one point, he was admiring my wedding rings, which I thought was strange. I've had women comment on them but never a strange man. But I noticed that for a guy, he was wearing quite few rings with diamonds himself. So he probably just likes diamonds and my rings are very pretty so he just felt the need to complement me on them.
He also seemed interested in my Tivo, DVD player and DVD recorder. My dining room is my hangout. My desk and computer are in there and I have a TV and all the recording stuff. So it caught his eye I guess and he had to ask me what each component was.
I just felt he was making conversation at the time. I never felt threatened or anything. He was just a very nice man doing his job. he definitely seemed to be on the up and up.

But I am a very trusting person and when you live in a small town where there's no crime at all, I guess it would be easy to be taken advantage of. I probably should be more careful from now on.

Terizz wrote:

Cherie glad the guy brought some entertainment into your life for the day, but I to hope he really was from the Census. I heard on the news the other day that someone was sending out false Census reports asking for people's SSNs and that is not something they collect.

I'm still filling the darn things out for my clients, I'm ready for them to disappear (the forms, not my clients) lol. Some of them have even come in asking for them saying they haven't received one yet. I told them there was nothing they could do but wait and if they didn't receive one someone will come to their door later to ask them the questions, I say good luck to the person that has to visit this area and visit all the people who do not speak English or Spanish.

He never asked for SS #'s or anything like that. I was keeping track of what he was asking just in case. One of the first things he said to me was that if I didn't want to answer something I didn't have to and if I didn't know the answer to some things that was ok too. I was able to answer everything he asked me and none of his questions seemed out of the way or too personal.

Quote :

African American, Black and Negro do seem, to ME to "all be the same" but I've also learned that people who might describe themselves with one or more of those categories often prerfer one over the other....
and for instance, I remember once, there was a girl who competed in the Olympics as an ice skater...her skin color was "black" but her mother was French and white skinned...
so while she might be "black" she was NOT African American

This sounds like Surya Bonaly. She is black and was adopted by a French white woman and man. They adopted her from somewhere in Africa when she was a baby. She does speak English but with a very french accent. She was one of the skaters in the skating special where Clay sang Holiday songs. She was pictured with Clay and Sasha Cohen.

The only questions he should have asked was how many people in the home, if you rent or own, what your phone number is, what each person in the home's name, age, birthday, and race are, and if they lived anywhere else in the last year or so.

I've seen 3 different versions, all the questions are the same, but some of them are just smaller than the others. Don't know what the difference is either. I got one of the big ones and it was just me in my apartment. Thought about putting the pets down though lol.

The one we got didn't have the question "If You Lived Anywhere Else In Past Year"