 Live, this is Think Tech, and we're doing Community Matters with Robert Sue, and Robert is with the United States Census 2020, doing his job. Welcome to the show, Robert. Aloha. Thank you so much for inviting me to the show. Thank you. Well, I mean, I think it's very important we talk to people like you. Lord knows you've been through some issues in the census. The administration has intimidated a lot of people, trying to scare them away from participating and answering questions candidly in the census. I'm reminded of the move on the Hispanics, the Latinos a year or two ago, which I'm sure it's scared a lot of people away, and they're still scared away, too. That hasn't changed. And then it went up to the Supreme Court a couple of times about certain questions, and I'm not sure that the administration has actually changed, even in accordance with the rulings of the Supreme Court. So we have a census that has lost public trust, lost confidence by the people. This is very important. We have a census that has the confidence of the people, because the census determines a lot of issues, including money and voting boundaries and so forth for the next 10 years. And actually, that's a long time. So it's very important that workers like you, A, get good information the best you can, and you can override all the intimidation, and B, that you build public trust in the census. So Robert, it's really important that we talk to you. Tell me what you're doing in the census in order to build trust in the census, in order to get the best information in the census. Sure, yeah, my role as a partnership specialist, basically, I was sent from L.A. Regional Office, tried to be a liaison, a bridge between the community here and the Census Bureau. And it's so important because, as you just mentioned earlier, without a public trust, people are scared. I try to convince people saying, based on the title 13 in the federal law, everything is confidential. And I'm here with everybody. I don't want to ruin my reputation by showing my sincere attitude, showing, don't worry about it. You have my promise, and I will try my best to protect everything. And I'm your bridge. So I'm not here alone. So your voice can go through me to be heard by the top authority. If you don't speak out, then nobody will hear you. So that is my main role as a liaison, the bridge, and to communicate with people, to bring back a public trust. I think that's always a trouble. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, and we saw that happen with the Latinos, and they ran away because they didn't want to have ice knocking on their door in the middle of the night. In some kind of raid or roundup and ruin their lives. So they didn't want to answer questions. And then it was a question about citizenship, the same thing. And people really lost confidence there a couple of years ago. But what we didn't hear about is the Chinese thing, because the administration is taking all steps possible to criticize, to mislabel, to make it hard for the Chinese from China to operate in this country, and to be part of the census. So you have a special role that goes parallel to, but perhaps even beyond, what happened with the Hispanics. So what is the feeling in the Chinese community? Who are we talking about? Who are we worried about when we say we got to build trust? Well, again, we're talking about Chinese. They are Chinese that are new immigrants. They are Chinese locally here, maybe more over here, a couple hundred years ago. So in the new immigrant, they are Chinese from China, the Chinese from Taiwan or other region, Hong Kong, Vietnam, or whatever the overseas Chinese. So everybody has a different historical background, and they have different concerns. And I think early this year, actually since last year, you can see the very popular news about what happened in Hong Kong. I believe most of people in Honolulu here, if they're from Hong Kong, they will worry about their family back in Hong Kong, what's going to happen to them. So because of the agenda, a lot of those, especially new immigrants, they keep low. They try not to expose themselves. They keep silent. And that's the nature, the ethnic background. Because Chinese people, you did more self-conservative in the history for five thousand years. They don't care who is in China or the country, all they care is, as long as my family and myself is safe, we keep quiet. Interesting. What you're saying is that the pressure, the intimidation is actually from two points of view. One is they should say something that would offend the Chinese government in Beijing. And as the Lord knows, there's enough things you can say to offend the Chinese government in Beijing. And then the other side is they can say something to offend the Trump administration here, because he doesn't like Chinese. So you get it from both sides. You have a very difficult job, Robert. So we stuck in between. You're right. Take a sandwich, we stuck in between. So we had to be very careful to handle how we say we don't want to upset people. We don't want to intimate people and then more upset about it and walk away. So what do they say to you? Look, Robert, thank you for your advice and consultation. We really appreciate your efforts in this, but we want to lie low. And what do you say back to them? Well, actually, to be honest, in past year, my experience when I go to the community to talk to people, I would say more than 95% of people, first time heard about census. They don't know about it. They don't know about the consequence of the census to them. So awareness is a problem. It seems that there's a public education awareness issue. So the first couple of months is to build a trust. So they open their heart and they can talk to you. They are waiting to talk to you. So I think that's a big change. So now they understand. We're not doing this for the government or for government in USA or the government for China or China or whatever, but we're doing for ourselves, for our children, for our next generation. So now they understand. So I'm very happy that the outcome because after the first two, three months to build a trust, that is the most difficult part because they look at you. They're scared. No, no, we don't trust government. I don't want to talk to you. But now they voluntarily invite you to participate in the activity, especially during the COVID-19. You know, it's hard. They send me the Zoom or WebEx invitation. It is, I build a trust. I think that's the most successful one. They know I can trust rubber sooth. In the way they trust, you know, bureau sensors, which I feel part of it, you know. But what do you say to them when they say, look, this may or may not remain a product because the government gets all this information. The first, the United States government gets it. And they're supposed to use it in a confidentially. They're supposed to use it to develop, you know, to develop the distribution of funding and voting boundaries and so forth. But how do we know that they won't pass it off to some other agency? For example, Department of Homeland Security Immigration Service. How do we know that? What do you say if they raise that question? Well, I reassure them, this federal law, Title 13, you guarantee and assure nobody allowed to touch the data from Census Bureau that it doesn't matter you are FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, no any law enforcement, including even the social welfare, they cannot use your data to disqualify you because everything is 100% confidential. Even myself, if I say something, I could be sentenced up to five years in jail or $250,000 fine. It's very, very serious. I use working for the tax department, you know, before under Title 26. We're supposed to secure all the tax payers information, there's a lot of confidential information. But the tax department is not as rich as Census Bureau because if we get court subpoena, CIA, FBI, law enforcement subpoena, we can submit your data to them. But Census Bureau cannot, based on Title 13, everything is confidential. And on the Chinese side, on the Beijing side, it's very unlikely they're going to be able to the Chinese government unless they hack into the system. They're not going to be able to get the data about what people have answered on the census. Am I right? Yeah, that's right. Not get it from Census Bureau. But you know, the technology right now, the spy all over the room over there, there could be somebody in, you know, just invaded inside the community, observed it, you know, it become a blacklist. And that's a scary part. And when you hear people missing when they travel to China, well, because you're under the blacklist, so there's got to be something that's going on. I don't know, but I think that's what people worry. So I heard recently, I had some people up from China, the new immigrant, they say, you know, they got to watch out because it's still Chinese citizenship. They only have the green card here. So if they become blacklist, not only their family might suffer in China, also when they get back to China, they could be in trouble. So those are the people that are more scared, people from Hong Kong, people from China. So I don't see other regions have problems. Yeah, that is scary. So are you able to convince them it's okay? What kind of response do you get? And are there holdouts who, you know, are not assured by what you tell them? Sure. I basically explained to them. The 2020 census, the questionnaire itself, it doesn't involve anything sensitive. It's very basic. It doesn't even ask your social security number or your income, right? So it's just basic, the information about the size of your family, your age, you know, your ethnic background. And those children harm you at all because we don't touch something sensitive in the questionnaire. And that's up the record. No, that's no problem. So I just make sure nothing will be asked about your personal confidential information and nothing sensitive. You won't get trouble back to China. Say, I have a three, three, you know, family member in this household. No, those kind of questions is very simple. You know, so very straightforward. At least they understand I can explain to them, no, all this, you know, it's very, very safe for you. So how, you know, you're communicating with people. How are you doing it? I mean, we are, I am reminded. I reminded every moment that we are in COVID now. So how do you connect with them? Do you go around physically? Do you talk on the telephone? Do you send mail? Do you have Zoom meetings? What do you do? Yeah, actually, to be honest, I have to mention, when I first started, that was before we shut down. And that part, I feel like the trust in the first two, three months, you know, and, you know, since then, one of the key things for them to build trust with them is, I speak the language they speak. Yeah, I don't come in here with official beige, you know, I'm from a federal government, I wanna talk to you. I come here to talk to you as a friend with your mother tongue language. So if I go to Mandarin speaking area, I speak to them in Mandarin. I go to Taiwanese speaking area, I talk to them in Taiwanese. So a lot of people told me. How about Cantonese, you speak Cantonese? Cantonese, I don't really speak that well. But, you know, interesting is, we have a same character. You know, the first emperor, one of the biggest contribution he has for the country, for the nation is he unified the language. It doesn't matter how, what kind of dialogue, we write it down, we're all the same. I can show them my writing, they can understand. Yeah, good, good, good. So that's a good part. We write it down, everything is the same. Just pronounced different. Yeah, anyway, okay, we have a slide show, Robert. Why don't we go through the slide show and you can tell us more about census 2020. Sure, yeah. So let's go next, yeah. I think the next screen, you know, that explains, we just talk about that. Why I put a slide there, two different big group of community. One is the Chinese Mandarin speaking group. The other one is Taiwanese speaking group. And you don't wanna miss anybody. We wanna count 100% accurate and complete for doesn't matter whatever language you speak. So that was the reason I put that slide. Go next, please. So the first one we know the biggest Chinese group is the local Chinese immigrant to Hanoi, I don't know how, move, you know, to Hanoi, Hawaii probably 200 years ago and they have a lot of people here. You know, they have many, many generations and Chinese Chamber of Commerce is a key. That is the first organization I got approached because under Chinese community, Chinese Chamber of Commerce, there are 100 organizations under them. So through them as my bridge, they can coordinate and communicate back to a lot, down to a lot of different organizations down there. The picture showing the other one is the former president Michelle, she is the president of Chinese Chamber of Commerce. When I first get on board and she's been very active, supported it. The lady next to her is the current president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Elvira. She, I think she started from June as a new president of Chinese Chamber of Commerce. And they both are very supportive. They send out a newsletter weekly, even monthly for Lenten, the news article to remind everybody important and census and you got to do the census. So Chinese community is very, very supportive. Again, they are very excited too because just the first time ever have a census bureau of people come to talk to them. So they appreciate it. We recognize them as a one entity there. Yeah, that's a good thing. So how do you identify them? I mean, if you start out on a given Monday morning, how do you find and connect with the Chinese people or your group, so to speak, to talk to them about the census because they're not going to come to you necessarily. How do you get to them? Well, I actually, I did some research and come out. They actually, first of all, the well-known Chinese people here in town, like Chulang Kwok, she's very active in Chinatown area and is a very good old friend. I know her 30 years ago. So I have a meeting with her. She gave me a one book called Red Book and that has a whole list of Chinese organization in the books. They listen out and from there, I also opinion which organization have what kind of special unique features, temperatures. So I put a note in what organization, what I can talk, what I should not talk. So it'll be more sensitive. So from there, I get in touch with the key. Again, after that, Chinese Chamber of Commerce is the first one I contact to. And they are very friendly, very nicely because I'm not here to steal any confidential information as a spy. So I build a trust. Of course, it takes some time, but I say two months for me to build a trust and I'm very happy about it. I told my friends, you know what, after census finish, because I'm walking in China so much, I will be a mafia in Chinatown. You told everybody about Robert Su, they would know. Yeah, I know that's guy we're sure and tight walking around the town all the time. You're going to have a lot of friends over there. Well, a lot, yeah, exactly. So now they all know, oh, that's a census guy. Go ahead, Robert, go with the slides, more slides. So the next one is, when I talk to Chinese Chamber of Commerce, so their biggest activity in the year, of course, Chinese New Year, that's a very big one, but it's a very crowded, as I put it, something more unique and people may be more interested and not see the screen. And it was very interesting people in my life. This is the first time in my life participate the beauty pageant like this. So we were offered by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to have free booths and we can make a presentation, talk to people over there. And the most beautiful part, we can take a picture with a beautiful lady just elected over there and they hold the census sign. I think that's very good, yeah. So it's very good publicity, you know. So that is one of the very good thing that happened. The other one is, we know, as you mentioned, nobody expected COVID-19 will happen suddenly like this. The good thing is, before that happened, we already encouraged, because of new technology, we should not just doing only the in-person, you know, promotions, something we can do, which use the internet, the web. So Chinese Chamber of Commerce put a front page as a link directly to 2020 census. So that allow everybody if they're interested in the above census or you want to respond to questionnaire, you could link it automatically. I think that's something very, very good by using technology. Yeah, yeah. So the census form, I guess it's online, but you can also write on it on paper. Do you ever deliver it to them? Do you ever help them fill it out? Or do you have other people who help you help them fill it out? Actually, we don't have the paper form. The paper form actually was sent out after Census Bureau didn't receive a response, because this is the first time ever that we take online response. And this is very unique, very nice that we apply the new technology. So up to today, we have 62.5% response in the state of Hawaii. Does that mean all the whole state, every group, or does it just mean that you're Chinese community? No, the whole state, every group, total our response rate, the sales, we call it the sales response rate, is 62.5%. And if you don't respond after a certain timeline, Census Bureau will send out, first of all, they send out invitation later. That invitation later has a Census ID. You can use ID to lock in, to website, to file online. And if you don't respond at certain time, then there's a follow-up, invitation later reminder, up to probably about three, four times, then they will send you a paper form. So we don't get a paper form. It's the household member, if you don't respond Census online or by phone, the other one you can use telephone to response the census. So, and then if you don't do either online or by phone, then you will receive the paper form. So I offer to those community partners, through the newsletters or email, put my content information, if any time you have any questions, you are free to give me a call. So that's how I can support them after we shut down mid-March, because of COVID-19, we actually can call over the phone. I can help those. And the organization, they will call meeting by using Zoom or WebEx for video conferencing. So I can present and show them what to do too, yes. Until the end of July, we actually recruit a lot of census takers. They are the one actually knocking the door door door-to-door to help. So my role, I don't go door-to-door, I go straight to the organization part and to provide education, awareness, communication, build a partnership, and then through their help, because you have thousands and thousands of Chinese or Taiwanese or Chinese here, you need to use hierarchical organization partner to help you to spread out the word. And again, they are the trust voice, because they go to the temple, they go to church, they trust the pastor, they trust the priest. So that's how we hook up with community leaders, with their trust voice to bring back more people to participate in. Do you have any idea what your percentage of success is within your community? You mentioned that 62% of the population has responded, of all the households has responded. But what about the Chinese community? Can you say whether it's 62% or more or less? Well, at this moment, we cannot see the data yet. The current online data, we can see it. We can see by the census track online, we can see what census track has how many people, population, and what is a sales response rate. And that's how I get involved with Senator Moriwaki, she's on district 12. I use the program I designed to show her, Waikiki is your district, but it has very, very low response rate. Can you help? And start from there, she's very proactive, she's tried to help, and very nice of her. Terrific. Well, what about the other countries? What about Korea? What about, I don't know, Let's see. Japanese. Japanese, right. What about Southeast Asia? There's a whole bunch of countries. Do they have representatives like you for those other countries as well? Yeah, we do have a partnership specialist here who speaks Japanese, and also Filipino language. And we have Hawaiians and Samoan Pacific Islanders. So we total have about seven partnerships special this year in the whole state of Hawaii, and a couple of them in neighbor island to help neighbor island. But if there's a need, we fly over to neighbor island to help. So you know, the census was supposed to last, you have to correct me on this, but it was supposed to last to near the end of the year, I want to say December, but it got cut by a month anyway by the administration. And so the window is going to be closing here pretty soon. What is that? At the end of October, is it? It's going to be cut soon. So what month is it? Can you tell me? Well, this kind of sense of the all I can say is, you know, there's a court litigation going on right now. Oh, okay. And you know, we are not allowed to comment. All we do is we try to encourage everybody, try to respond now, you haven't responded yet. That is a key. Don't wait. Oh, there's another month or another week. If you do it now, it doesn't matter. And that's a key point. So we wait for, see what is the final just, you know, judgment from a court and decide. But at this moment, we try to keep the word out. You know, it's not too late. I don't need a response now. You don't have to worry about when with a sense of because, yeah, so. Sure. But you know, it just strikes me and you can, you know, you can agree or disagree that if you cut it off early, you're going to have a, you're going to reach fewer people. This is not as much time available for you to do your work for people to respond. So by definition, you're going to cut off a few people at the end. Am I right? Well, theoretically that is true, but amazing the team did a great job. We actually, we're talking about enumeration. There are 62.5% that did a self-response either online by the phone or through the mail. The rest of them are rely on the censor takers that go door to door, right? Even though there's some sort of challenging, you know, issue happening because COVID-19 people refuse open the door. So, but so far after this morning's records, total we have 99.4% of household has been enumerated. But I want to say enumerated is at least somebody already to communicate with them whether they respond or not. I don't know. Yeah. So, but we, What you can do is ask, yeah. Yeah, exactly. At least we've been a message. We remind them, encourage them, but we cannot force them. This is a free country, you know? So, we respect their choice, but amazingly is just from July 30th, we start on this, you know, non-response, you know, census taking, you know. Actually bring out our total enumeration. I don't say response rate, enumeration rate up to 99.4%. That's really terrific. Now, are you working in more than one district at the same time? You're working here obviously, but are you also working in California and in Los Angeles doing the same thing? Is that included in your area of operation? No, actually I'm focused on Hawaii. We do have a weekly or monthly meeting to exchange knowledge experience in other region. And originally we gather together in headquarters. We discuss exchange experience, as I say, you know, even though I'm in Chinese community, but you know, there's a big Chinese group in San Francisco. There are a big Chinese group in Los Angeles, right? Even other state. So we cover seven state in the Western regions for the LA regional office. Actually, LA regional office is the biggest one in the nation. That's what I heard, because the population, we are the biggest size. California, a lot of people there, so. It's a major thing. It's constitutional, it's important. I'm so glad you're doing this. Query, though, what will you do when it's over? I mean, I don't know when it actually would be over for you. You go back to your previous government job tax, I guess it was. Where do you go, you stay with the census all through the 10 year period or you go do something else? Well, yesterday I obtained the statewide, the biggest, you know, census CCC, we call that the Complete Count Committee. That was shared by the Highway Committee Foundation. And I have mentioned to everybody during the last conference that we have, the monthly conference, I share with everybody, say, you have all my content information. I even give everybody my personal email, my personal cell phone numbers. I'm still around. And even until 2030, any question I try my best, it is for our community. When I engage myself into this, I'm engaged myself to the committee service. So I very touching is I went to, you know, visit some new immigrant group I was invited for, you know, making presentation, even go to senior housing, the Kukui Garden. There's one lady, 94 years old, and she came out to talk to me after my presentation. You know, she came with her, give her a hug, she said, Mr. Su, this is the first time in my life I never heard about census. Thank you so much. At least I can do it now. So I say, so great to hear that. So actually I told myself, census finished, but myself, my spirit, you know, my heart is still with everybody in community because I build a trust. I cannot dumb them, you know. We are friends forever. And that's all, you know, I'm trying to share. So I believe it kind of takes a while to finish the whole census. Even though whatever judgment by the court, I'm not working in the Census Bureau, but I'm still, I actually send a note to my boss in LA regional office, say, if Census Bureau doesn't have a budget, I volunteer to be a point of contact here. I want to be a bridge to build the people in Hawaii to communicate census, you know, bureau headquarters. And don't worry about budget or pay. I volunteer until one day you say, oh, Robert, you know, we have budget. You did a great job, you tell me. But that's my mentality. I want to be sincere to show my care and love to our community, to the people here. So yes, I will be a forever ambassador for Census Bureau here in Hawaii, especially the Chinese community. I've been talked to a lot, not even Chinese community, I even go to university. You know, my IT background, I talk to a lot of big IT company that even neighbor over there, Oceanic, they are very supportive. PR fortress, the biggest, you know, the networking company, e-world, the application company, you know, data house, all those company, they all know me. I was CIO for tech department. And you know, as my personal philosophy, when you deal with when you build a trust sincere, not just the business, it's a forever friend. So, and that build asset for me. You know, I learned from that, that build asset for me. So this census, I build a lot of assets and I don't want to let go like that. I want to continue to serve our community as long as possible. That's great, Robert. I am touched by your sense of community and your willingness to volunteer. I am truly touched. Robert's showing me the census 2020, an extraordinary man in an extraordinary time at doing extraordinary things with this country. Thank you so much, Robert. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Hello.