Getting Set for Count in Minority Areas

A cadre of volunteers will blanket the most densely populated minority areas of San Diego and National City on March 24 to encourage people to fill out their census forms.

“We are going out into the trenches,” said R. Daniel Hernandez, secretary of the Chicano Democratic Assn., one of the organizations participating in the drive.

Volunteers will go door to door to emphasize to people the importance of filling out the forms. They will be armed with flyers explaining how government money is allocated based on the census figures, and that the forms are confidential.

Hernandez said residents in the targeted Asian-American, African-American and Latino communities will be told “to trust (the census and) to sign the forms. A lot of the programs that help the community get their funding based on the census figures.”

A coalition of about 20 organizations active in the minority communities is behind the drive, including the Chicano Federation, the Union of Pan Asian Communities and the San Diego Urban League.

Irma Castro, executive director of the Chicano Federation, said the groups banded together about two weeks ago and began developing the plan. So far they have mustered about 200 volunteers, who will work in teams as they go into 25 census tracts in Linda Vista, South San Diego, Southeast San Diego, San Ysidro and National City.

Because the tracts vary in population density--some contain 15,000 people while others contain 1,500--Castro said she is hoping that more people will come forward to volunteer.

“We’re hoping to get 500 volunteers,” she said.

It was concern about minority communities being undercounted that brought the groups together, Castro said. She said she had no estimate for the number of minorities in San Diego who were missed in the 1980 census, but that in Los Angeles the figures were put at 10% to 16% of the minority population.

“While this is San Diego, you can draw a correlation. This is an urban, dense area with families in multiple dwellings,” she said.

“A lot of people are afraid because they don’t speak the language or they think that the census is the INS or the police,” Castro said.

Many of the volunteers are bilingual, she said, and will help allay those fears.

Anyone interested in volunteering can call the Chicano Federation at 236-1228.