 I'm Marcia Joyner, and are you counted? Today, we are going to explore the 2020 census. So my question is, are you counted? And we're going to talk with Sharon, who is a specialist. And find out why you should be counted, what happens with the counting, and all of those wonderful things. So the question is, are you counted? Aloha, Sharon. Aloha, Marcia. Thank you so much. Thank you. Really grateful for this opportunity to share with everybody the very important message of the upcoming decennial 2020 census. So very excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Now, first of all, the question is, what is the census? OK, the census is one of the most important civic engagement and civic duty that we have every 10 years. It is counting for every person in the United States. And what we do is we use that statistical data of where people reside and where they live. And it helps to determine federal funding. And it also creates the apportionment count for the House of Representatives. And it's just one of the most important things that you can do. So in a nutshell, it's something that impacts every single person's life. So that question that you're asking of, are you counted? We, hopefully, by the end of this program and continuing on, will be able to say, yes, everybody counts. So why is it everyone, babies, grandpa, everybody? Why is it important that we get everybody? OK, it's important that we get everybody because we say that our mission for the census, our bottom line, so to speak, in our theme, is count everyone once, only once, and in the right place. The right place being where individuals are when we conduct this count that happens every 10 years. And that would be on April 1, 2020. And what happens is when we count every single person in your family or that is sharing a residence with you or myself or whoever, what we're able to do is we're able to be able to determine where that federal funding needs to go. For example, counting young children under the age of five is one of our big, big initiatives for this upcoming census because there were a million children that were not counted in the last census. So we say if there is a newborn baby, if they're born on April 1, which is census day, we want to count them. Even if they've only been here for 10 seconds, every single person counts. And then how the breakdown of the different age groups, the different ethnicities will determine special programs that go back. And it's so important because I like to share that it's the cause and effect of how it helps the community. And this strengthens our community by providing the necessary services. Well, now, in a place like Hawaii, where we have so many different communities, different ethnic communities, different backgrounds, different languages, all of these things, how do you manage to, now, first of all, let me talk about Chinatown since that's the one I know best. OK. I just spent so many years working in Chinatown. So we have seven different Asian languages in that live and work in Chinatown. Seven different Asian languages. And so many of them come from communities or nations where they were scared to death of the government. If you were from Burma, for instance, you would never tell one word about anything. Yes. So how do you talk to people like that? And Chinatown is not the only place. How do you talk to people like that who come from places where they're scared of the government? How do you reach those people? Because it's important that they're counted also. Oh, absolutely. And again, that's why what we do is I'm part of what is called the Community Partnership and Engagement Program. And our job is to educate. So that's why we're so grateful again for this opportunity. Back to the question that you're asking. What we try to do is we try to reassure. First of all, we try to reassure people that your information will never be used against you. It's protected by Title XIII. And what we try to do is we share the importance of being counted in those different ethnic groups and community groups. So for example, I am a what they call a Japanese language partnership specialist. So of course, I speak to many, many groups like the neighborhood boards, the different Rotary Clubs, Lions, Kiwanis, everybody. But I also speak directly to the Japanese community. And I share this information that we share today in that Japanese language. And so back to your question. So we just hired and have on board a Chinese language specialist. And so what ends up happening is we take our specialists. We have a Spanish language. We have one for the Filipino community, two for the Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander community. And then we have two specialists on the Big Island and Maui. And what we do try to do is we have those specialists engage their network of trusted community leaders. So for example, if it was the example of the Chinatown, obviously we would be going to the leadership in Chinatown, asking for opportunities to engage and speak directly to the community members, whether that's a town hall type of situation or through a grassroots organization. So we have a lot of different speaking engagements. And we also will have language brochures and posters. And then we ask for these trusted leaders. Because for example, if I just show up in Chinatown, not everybody would know me. So what would happen is it's better to have the Chinatown leadership become a strong partner with the 2020 census. And they can help us. So we are currently, we're really looking for a lot of great community partners. And I'll give you another example, a faith-based community. One of the most trusted people among local communities would be a reverend or a pastor or somebody of leadership, whether whatever faith it is, Buddhist, Christian, it could be any faith. And what we try to do is we ask for that leader to engage in what we call a faith-based partnership. So they will remind, through the church newsletter, the temple newsletter, they will remind their congregants of how to engage in the census. And that it is their civic duty. And it's very important. Well, you mentioned Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. But again, there's so many. The Micronesians, four different languages. Absolutely. And none of them, they're all different. Absolutely. This is the part where it gets, we call it very challenging and kind of delicate. And we understand that it's very important, first impressions matter, how we engage, how that message is shared, and then translation. I have worked as a Japanese interpreter. We don't want to get lost in translation, right? We want to make sure the accuracy, and we make sure that people are comfortable in the language. So I'll give you a great example. We're very honored and excited this Saturday. We're going to be in Waipahu Elementary School. And the reason we're going, there's 200 people gathering from the Marshall Islands community. And that's the one with the four different languages. Exactly. And I don't speak all of them, but I'll be there to engage and connect with our Native Hawaiian partnership specialist, who's trusted in that community. And we're working very closely. So this time, we were invited by the Council General. And we're also invited by the Vice Council General. So we are becoming fast and good friends and partners to be able to share this message. I was a speaker, this is years ago, for the Marshall Islands and the Micronesians of Marshall Islands. And they would translate all four languages. And then by this time, I forgot what I'm talking about. And then four more. And it was amazing to me. And they're such beautiful people. And they would sit so quietly. Like they knew what I was talking about. It's like they were beautiful people. My goodness, there's four languages. Yeah, it's very, you know. And of course, when there's certain situations where we have to translate to more of the larger languages, so to speak. So for example, with the census, we have like 59 official languages. And then we also have 12 languages, non-English, that are more for the posters, for the brochures. But we have that capability of having people respond in the language that they're comfortable with. But what's happened is here for Hawaii, we have discovered that we need to, for example, we need to do some more translation. And it's more specialized for those from the Marshall Islands, Chiquis. These were not offered in our original batch of languages from the Census Bureau. So what's happening is, again, the keyword here is partnership. What we did is we are partnering with the University of Hawaii, partnering with folks, and then having them assist us with translation. And pigeon. OK, pigeon. I don't know if we're going to get to that this time. But yeah, you're right. We're going to have to discuss that. We still have a little bit of time. You should, because that's the way they feel comfortable. Exactly, exactly. That's the language. And with my children on the playground, that was the language everybody spoke. So and even now, even though they're all very grown, but when they're still together, they speak pigeon. And so that seems to me would be an icebreaker. It would be that they feel comfortable, that OK, then you're OK, that they allow you to do this. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And so that now, OK, now that we have gotten them, what is it that you're telling them when you have this big audience? OK, that's a great question. So we have a presentation. It can be as short as five minutes. It can be 10 minutes. It can be a little bit longer, depending on the audience. And so actually our job, we've been tasked to go all over the island. Every day, we're talking to a new group. And sometimes it's as little as five people. Sometimes it's 200 people. And we do what we call, there's a PowerPoint presentation, and it's called The Road to 2020. And basically in a nutshell, it talks about the civic engagement part. It talks about how the 2020 census is safe, that your answers are protected. We also talk about that relationship with the federal funding. We also ask for everybody's support inside this presentation, as far as counting young children under the age of five. We also, of course, we count those who are homeless. We also count, besides all of the ethnicities, we also count groups such as the LGBTQ plus group. And a great example of a presentation and connection and partnership is we just, for the first time, we were at the Pride Festival and this weekend. And we were engaging with approximately 10,000 people who were in attendance. And what we like to do is we have an interactive booth and we try to make the census fun. And then we share all of this information to them about why they should be counted and that their voices matter. I think that's the most important thing that everybody matters for the 2020 census. I think probably that's the biggest thing to tell people why it's important. What do you mean by federal funding? That's a big word, we hear it all the time. Yes. Especially on the news when you're denied federal funding. What does that mean? Okay, so the bottom line is what we do with the census, so once every 10 years, we take account of every single person. And what happens is April 1st is the census day. This year, what's very exciting is for the first time since 1790, the census starting, we are offering internet self-response. So the capability to with a little laptop or tablet on your phone, we've never had this ability. And so we are offering the chance to start that self-response. And then what happens is when we gather all of the data on December 31st, 2020, we will present it to the President of the United States. Here are all the accounts, here are all the surveys and the questionnaires that we receive back from the people of Hawaii all over across the state. And then within three months, the federal funding is determined, the House of Representatives and how that's going to be broken down. Okay, we need to take a break. Okay. We'll be back in 60 seconds. And then we'll talk about what comes with the federal funding. Exactly what is federal funding. Okay, perfect. We'll be back in one minute. Thanks to our ThinkTech underwriters and grand tours, the Atherton Family Foundation, Carol Monli and the Friends of ThinkTech, the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education, collateral analytics, the Cook Foundation, Dwayne Kurisu, the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Hawaii Council of Associations of Abarbon Owners, Hawaii Energy, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, Hawaiian Electric Company, Integrated Security Technologies, Galen Ho of BAE Systems, Kamehameha Schools, MW Group, the Shidler Family Foundation, the Sydney Stern Memorial Trust, Volo Foundation, Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. And we're back. Are you counted? Today, we are looking at what it means to be counted. So the question is, are you counted? So by the time we get to the end of the program, you're supposed to say yes. Okay. Sharon. Sharon, tell us, now we keep talking these big words about funding. What kind of funding does the state get from the feds based on the count? The population count. Yes. What do we get? Okay. So the reason that it's so important is it's approximately across the United States, it's about $675 billion. Okay. And it might be a little bit more now, the nowadays, what's happening. And then when we break it down, it comes back to being what we call, we're fighting for our fair share of the Hawaii pie. And our fair share of that $675 is over $2 billion. And so there was, we've done some research and it's approximately like $1,500 per person. That estimate's going to kind of go up. And basically, so Marcia, what happens is that we're talking about programs like for example, school lunches for the cakey. And we're talking about programs for the seniors. So it gets funneled down, where are hospitals going to be? Where are new roads going to be built? Where are improvements for the community? So these are a lot of different groups that are part of that. And I would encourage everybody, 2020census.gov will show you, when you go to our website, it has like breakdowns of where that federal funding goes. And a little bit more detail about that. Also the state of Hawaii, we have what we call the State Complete Count Committee and we're very grateful for their partnership. And they've got, if you Google that, they've got all kinds of statistics that talk specifically back to Hawaii. So we're grateful for that partnership. Okay, so anybody that wants to work. Yes. And wants to be a part of this and go count all their neighbors. How do we do that? Okay, that is so easy to do. And we want you to do that right now. We are actually in the middle of a national recruiting week. And we are so excited to have this opportunity to give you the information. Yeah, we do. Yes, it's right up on the screen there. I'm also going to mention a phone number that you could call. It's 1-855-J-O-B-2020. So 1-855-J-O-B-2020. And that's for additional information. But the first step would be to go to this website. And let me just say that we are looking for those who are 18 and over. And we are looking for those who, these are part-time positions. These are different jobs for the census. We want you to apply now. The census is coming up in April. Most of the training and everything here in Hawaii will happen around March. But this is a great extra way to earn income and be connected to your community. And for example, if it's you, people in your community know Marcia and they'll be more apt to participate. So we really look for great, great census workers. And I don't know if you were aware, but this is the largest peacetime recruitment, job recruitment effort in the United States once every 10 years, the 2020 census. Yes. No, I didn't know that this was happening. But I would imagine that because our population grows that the look for people grows. Yes, absolutely. And then what we're looking for is we're looking for people on every single island, by the way. So not only, you know, we're sitting here in Oahu, which of course has a lot of people, but we're looking for people on the big island. You know, we need census workers and census takers on every single island, you know, even Lanai and Molokai. Molokai, yes. What about Niihau? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because those people get left out all the time. Exactly, we have to do a special count for that, you know. So it doesn't matter small population or, you know. But yeah, because again, collectively as a state, we all, you know, represent and matter. And Niihau speaks a different Hawaiian language than they speak the original Hawaiian language. So that's different. That's why we're going to have our Native Hawaiian partnership specialist, Pacific Islander partnership specialist, you know, go and do an outreach. Yes, I would think. Now, Kaua'i, they have some of those people on Kaua'i that speak that language. So that might be a place to look for your specialist. Yes. It may be Kaua'i. And since we are physically on Oahu, but at the end of the day, we will be on YouTube. So it's everywhere. Correct. And so actually, you know, we're talking about Hawaii and everything. But like you said, it's, you know, it's worldwide. And well, across the United States right now, for our purposes, we are looking at every single state. So one message I like to share is if you've got family in Idaho, Montana, wherever, we're looking for people there too. So it can be anywhere. So the number that you gave for jobs is not just Hawaii. It could be for every one. Yes, this is a national number. And so what we're trying to do is try to keep it organized. So we direct it to those individuals who are able to best answer the question. So we have the one number and the one website that everybody can go to and apply. Yeah. Now, so again, everybody, what about military people that are deployed? How are they counted? OK, that's a great question. We have a residency criteria. And so they will be counted, like for example, if they're stationed at a base, like for example, Hickam Air Force Base or, you know, they're at Fort Chapter or wherever they happen to be, there is a special enumeration that we do for what we call group quarters. So this includes not only the military folks, but also, for example, the senior assisted living, facilities and college dormitories. We have a special enumeration, correctional facilities and shelters. We have actually the management or the leader. So in the example of the military, it would be we would be having this discussion with the military leaders. And we are doing that. And then they have a special way of counting all of the military personnel. So they are counted as active duty. Correct. What about their presence in their home state or wherever they say there? Or are they counted where they are? Yeah, it's where the bottom line is where you sleep and stay the most, the majority of the time. So and then where you are located on April 1st. So, you know, if they're on like a temporary assignment and they're going right back to Idaho or someplace like that or Ohio, you know, of course, they would fill out the survey there. But otherwise, if they're stationed for a length of time here, they would, you know, have to... Well, now, of course, my husband's retired, maybe. So my thought is, all these guys would see where they counted. Okay, when they're... Again, that's a special... They are at sea on April 1. Yes. So that would be considered a special like assignment type of situation or what we call again group quarters or it's very unique situation. So they would be, again, counted by that leadership of where they are. So the ship would say how many people they had on that day. Yeah, this is where these individuals happen to be. Oh. Like, you know, it's almost like they're kind of in transit, but yeah. Yeah, because they go to Seaford nine months, yeah. Yeah, my nephew's in the Coast Guard, too. So, yeah. They're kind of hard to say which way this little block of the ocean is. Yeah. So we're excited and delighted that we have individuals that assist us. You know, again, college dormitories, you know, all of these kind of unique situations of where people are counted and we wanna make sure that they will be counted. Because if you have a... Well, April, I guess it would be okay because it may go away to college in June. Correct. So majority of the students will still be living on the dormitory, you know, on campus at that point. And if so, then that's where they will be counted. Like, for example, at Manoa. So the parents would not count them. Correct. Correct. Unless they come home every day. Yes, unless they're commuting. Yeah. Yeah, if they're commuting, then they would be under that roof, you know. I would like to... When we're kind of on this line of questions, I would like to bring up here in Hawaii, we do have a lot of, you know, we do have situations where family members, like for example, back to the children, they are raised separately away from their parents. So one of the examples that I always share when I go to the neighborhood boards or the different communities, for example, if the child's parents are in Pearl City, but the child in reality is living primarily with their grandma in Manoa, then the answer to the question is, is that child in Manoa on April 1st, the child would be counted in Manoa because the school lunches and the federal funding would be funneling down into Manoa as opposed to Pearl City. Now, I have one big question. Yes. I hope I have the answer. You guys, no doubt. Okay. We have in Hawaii enough people for a third house seat, congressional seat. How do we get that? By filling out the census. Yes. So that's where we talk about that cause and effect. And you know, because one of the key missions and the key purpose of doing the whole census is the apportionment of the House of Representatives. So if we can showcase and make sure that every single person participates, then that will lead automatically to that because they will look at the counts of where people live. Okay. So you must be counted so we can get a third seat in the House of Representatives. That's imperative. You've got to remember, we need a third seat. We can't be the lone people with just four. We can't. Two senators, two representatives. That's what we had when we became a state. We're still there. If I may add, you know, everything that you're saying is so true because one of our, so our mission is count everyone once, only once in the right place. But we have a theme as far as our media campaign, which is gonna start in January of next year. You'll see a lot of messaging and it's shape your future start here. And when we talk about shaping your future, you're shaping the future for your life, your family's life, our community's life, but it impacts for 10 years. So if you can imagine, everything that we're talking about today is going to effect all the way to 2030 is so important to be counted. And so we are just about at the end. But remember, 10 years, in that 10 years, we need a third seat. So we need you to be counted. Everybody in your house, everybody in Tutu's house, everybody, everybody, we need another seat in the House of Representatives. So you must be counted. Karen, thank you so much for spending this time with us. And next month, we will have someone else on the census and we are not going to give up. You must be counted. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Thank you.