Trials of a Census Enumerator

* I encouraged my retired husband to become an enumerator for the U. S. Census Bureau. Now, after a couple of weeks of going door to door at homes and apartments in very nice neighborhoods in Oxnard and Ventura, he is quite demoralized to say the least.

He has had doors slammed in his face, been threatened, screamed at, nipped at by an angry resident’s angrier pit bull, lied to and rejected. One woman threw trash at him. A Ventura firefighter and a middle school teacher adamantly refused to obey the law and ordered him off their property. These are role models?

I overheard someone say $11.75 an hour is too much to pay the enumerators. In my opinion, they should receive hazard pay for having to face those residents who couldn’t take a few minutes to send back their forms when they first received them.

JANICE M. CARUSO

Ventura