What We’ve Done to Help New Yorkers Get Counted in the 2020 Census + $20,000 Back into Chinatown Businesses
This year was off to a slow start for 2020 Census participation and outreach due to the coronavirus pandemic. The mandatory shelter in-place and fear of contracting the virus deterred people from completing paper surveys and mailing them out. It prevented Census specialists from providing support to neighborhoods with low response rates to encourage completion. The Census faced another challenge when the Trump Administration announced the earlier deadline for Census data collection, which was set to end on September 30th - a month earlier than planned.
To combat these challenges, last month, Welcome to Chinatown partnered with various community organizations and local businesses to support outreach efforts among the hard to reach populations within Lower Manhattan. During the duration of the project, we:
Distributed over 10,000 Census flyers over the course of 4 weeks
Provided meals prepared by Chinatown restaurants and donated them to local food pantries such as UA3, Grand Street Settlement, Henry Street Settlement, and Project Eats where approximately 4,000 meals were delivered to their operation sites
We successfully reached 14,000 residents in downtown Manhattan through meal deliveries and flyer distributions
We put $20,000 back into Chinatown’s local businesses. Participating Chinatown restaurants included: 21 Shanghai House, 46 Mott, Cha Chan Tang, Kong Sihk Tong, Hop Kee, Milk & Cream, My Food House, NB Wing Wong, Noree Thai Bazaar, Nyonya, Soft Swerve, Thailicious, Tofu Tofu, Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, Wok Wok Southeast Asian Kitchen, Yi Fang Taiwan Fruit Tea
In addition to the community outreach efforts, we leveraged our social media platforms to educate the importance of completing the Census and how it affects the community when it is undercounted. We focused on providing information about the 2020 Census that our generation of young adults could share with their families to make sure parents, grandparents and elder family members completed their Census form.
As Asian Americans, it’s important we make sure we get counted, especially for many of us who come from immigrant households where the importance of the Census may be an unfamiliar practice. Getting counted means our minority communities will be able to receive funds for critical programs for healthcare, schools, economic development and infrastructure, city planning, public housing, and political representation.
We also held two Instagram Live streams hosted by our very own Project Manager, Wenny Chan, and U.S. Census Bureau Partnership Specialist, Tianqi “Robyn” Yang. The virtual program included a conversation of what the Census is, which also included a mock interview of the questions asked. Spoiler alert — there are only 9 questions that take less than ten minutes to complete! Thanks to our hundreds of participants for tuning in.
For those of you who haven’t completed the 2020 Census yet, there’s still time! There will also be another wave of paper surveys coming in the mail in the week of September 14th for those who prefer to fill one out by hand, or it can be done online here.
The next opportunity to be counted is in ten years, which means you and your family could miss out on the essential funding and resources until then.
Additional Resources:
Fill out the 2020 Census for you and your loved one at 2020census.gov
Visit our Instagram account to view additional 2020 Census facts and watch the IGTV recap of the live stream.
Census language guides available in 59 languages: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/2020-census/planning-management/language-resources/language-guides.html
Seventh mailing article about the second wave of paper surveys mail, email communications, etc. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/adapts-2020-operations.html
