 Marcia Joyner and are you counted? Today we are with our great great people that are out trying to make all this happen just for you and this is the census, census 2020 and they will tell us what the census is about why the census and how it impacts you and we need to know that you are counted. So Annie Mae? Hi Marcia, how are you? That is such a lovely name. Thank you. And we have a new guest, Jesus. Annie, would you introduce Jesus and tell us since he's the newbie on this? Sure, yes. Jesus is our new partnership specialist but I have him talk more about himself. Yes, my name is Jesus Arriola and I am a Hispanic Latino partnership specialist so I help the Spanish speaking community members complete their census. Wonderful. Now so let's tell us because Oahu is that, I hate to say this, the Hispanic people or Latinos or both, is it just for you, is it just on Oahu or is it for the state? For the state. For the state. So you're gonna go all over. Yes ma'am. Yes, we'll be in Maui the first week of September and we're hoping to go to Hawaii and Big Island as well just to help and just let everyone know about getting counted. So how are we doing with the count? Yes, we're very excited to share with you all how we are doing here nationwide and at the same time for the state of Hawaii. Nationwide today we had a self-response rate of 64.6% and for Hawaii we had a self-response rate of 61.5%. So I'm gonna be mentioning a lot of numbers but just to clarify self-response rate or our score that's when people responded voluntarily and proactively responded to their census online over the phone or sending back their paper questionnaire but we also have what we call now the non-response follow-up and it's been going on since July 30. Our census takers are enumerating and visiting households who have not yet responded and now because of that effort we have a total enumeration count here in the state of Hawaii of 85.3%. So that's very good. 0.3% of us are already counted. That's great. Yes, so thank you for everyone who's been helping us making it happen and if you are one of those who enumerated yourself and you know self-responded thank you so much. Well, well for our audience that may not know that we're partners with the census and we have been here once a month for what since January? Actually since September of last year. Thank you so much. Yes, you're one of our longest standing partners since we started Miss Marsha so thank you for having us. It's great. We did respond and like I told you early that if everybody responds and I do mean if and I push and push and push that if everybody responds we would have enough for a third congressional district for three CD and I want that because now we are only four people in the Congress in the two senators and two in the house so so we get out the cellar if we had one more congressional district. So that's my goal with the census is to get tell us how that's counted. How who makes the decision on whether we get another congressional district? I noticed that some states lost congressional districts. How's that determined? It really depends at the moment we cannot really say if how many we're gonna get or not. It really depends on how the final count in after this 2020 census data field collection is done and our headquarters are going to process it to make sure that we have you know a complete and accurate count and then we will have the apportionment count later on and we will know by December 31 if we gained or lose seats so that's for this you know if the state got more and apportionment seats I would just redistribute it but that's why it's the 2020 census this once a decade census is so important to make sure that we have the right representation in Congress who can be our voice in in the national government. So who makes that determination? How's that after all of this I know goes to the president on the final day but who makes what how is that determined? Our experts in the census headquarters are our statisticians and our data scientists will make that you know after everything is processed that determination will be done. Yeah and just so people understand what I just said it just doesn't matter whether the president wins or loses he will be in office on the last day of the year so the census is turned over to him so just just so people don't think I'm yeah it doesn't matter um yeah the statutory date our deadline is December 31 and so that's why it's so important to be counted to make sure that our state has you know the best chance you know to get our um the number of seats that we deserve as a state. Yes so now Jesus tell us about you. All right miss Marshall thank you for having us yes um so I've been working with the community members nonprofits and small businesses to try and partner to just get the word out let people know you know the census is here let's get counted and then the importance of it you know um I know over the last couple months we've gone over with everyone about how the federal funding comes to the communities through the census numbers how roads and schools are you know built determine on the data and and again it's once every 10 years so the data that we are able to get today will determine the next 10 years and it's really important for a lot of the community programs so I mean we see it firsthand and now we see it it's probably more important now than ever and and with that leading into reapportionment for our legislators and as well as you know the importance of voting it's the civic civil engagement is very important so that our voices are heard and so that we can actually get programs and get the need that we get the needs and resources that we need. Let me add one thing I just read last last month I guess in Arizona in the 10 10 census the natives the the tribal people uh were counted as other they were not listed as native americans or indigenous or whatever the tribe name is so they just were put other now when we had the pandemic and they got nothing no nothing because they were other so it was then that I understood that the real especially here where we have um what do you call it um Hawaiians that that said well they weren't americans so they weren't going to participate and we had the marshallese and the micronesians and they're all lumped in as Pacific Islanders so is there is it important other than we saw what happened to the native in Arizona the native americans got nothing from this money for the COVID-19 and there was you know no water no nothing so are we by not getting a real good count of the people that say they're not american and they don't just participate is that going to be a problem here like it is in Arizona and the impact for this you know discount definitely when we have an undercount and we missed out we missed some people in the count we don't get enough funding that goes into again what Jesus mentioned earlier schools um water systems health care you know hospitals it really matters that we are included you know um that you are counted and we you know you we know where you are because that's when oh this community needs this um this funding for example language access right Jesus and I we work with a language specific community and also with everyone but I'm a Filipino speaker so I work with a Filipino community and we want to know where the Filipinos live for example because maybe that community needs language access more language access so that there can be funding for language access later on for example so those things matter and we really have I think one thing that I have to applaud the census is that they really focus on um you know making sure that uh our field staff like people like me and Jesus and even our census takers in the field are from the community we speak the language of the community so that we can really reach out and communicate um to you know the people that we want to make sure are counted so that you know we're not missing anyone out Jesus you want to add to that I completely agree and it's very important now I'll remind everyone it is a self response so it's really you know when you're going through the questions you're self responding so when it comes to and I know we'll talk about this the the race or the Hispanic not Hispanic it's really up to the individual and the household to determine how they want to be represented and it does matter so when you mentioned the incident or the situation in Arizona it just goes to show how important this is and again I'll reiterate we see the need now and we see that you know we really need correct data in order to assess and then act upon what's to come and this is again for the next 10 years so there won't be another count until 2030 so between then and now and then it's very important to be able to know who's in our community and and have them be heard and I think this is a very good step to start this new decade you know we're off to a very challenging time where we have to be innovative and we have to think outside the box but again it's all going to all the data is going to relate to what decisions are made because the data and the numbers are the foundation of the decision making we have a question how do you get responses from people who haven't answered because of COVID so yeah we would really love to talk to our community about that currently we have our census takers doing the hard work in the field right now they are still doing door-to-door visiting households who have that yet responded however it's not too late um you can still go online um at my2020census.gov or you can call 844-330-2020 if you want to complete your census over the phone or you can mail back your paper questionnaire to us if you don't want a census taker to knock on your door and and get your answers however we want to assure our community that our census takers are trained to do this safely and we are following CDC and local guidelines to complete the interviews and enumeration in a safe manner they're going to be wearing a mask and they knock on the door conducting the interview in a social distance way um so we want to you know reassure our community that we are doing this in the safest way however if you you have um the option to really just go online and do it yourself do you have a number we can put up for the through contact yes um contact number yes 844-330-2020 um that will uh you can immediately talk to you know a census representative we also have 12 other non-English languages um that you know you can access um from our website census 2020census.gov and you can um look at the available languages there if you want to speak to um in you know your native language now what about the people who don't have internet connection how do you reach them so they can um if they don't have you know access to internet we have radio actually we have a lot of partners helping us right now reminding communities over the radio in the airwaves um if they have tv we have such a massive you know advertisements over in you know in cable tv uh you know reminding them to respond to the census we are we also sent paper questionnaires we also sent postcards um we are we actually have seven reminders uh to communities just so um they you know since march we've been doing this since march and you know just to remind everyone and make sure that we don't miss out anyone what about people that don't have street address but they have a post office box let's say they live on a farm um how do you reach those people that don't have street addresses we actually also sent um postcards to them miss marsha in the po boxes we actually yeah we actually change a little bit we have to be innovative as susan right so we adapted and sent reminders to them our local partners sent reminders as well with all the information and ways to do and to respond to the census we also have um we did the update enumeration or actually update leave enumeration where we actually census takers left the paper questionnaires on their back you know in in their front porch or whatnot so they can see it and they can just grab it and fill it out so we really are trying our very best to make sure that we don't miss um any household well what about um homeless people houseless people are they coming that's a big community are they counted of course is this you want to speak about that as well yes of course yes they are counted they are part of our community and there are different operations and groups that have different roles and there are people that went out and have already built a relationship with our our houseless communities and made sure that they had the opportunity to self respond and then if they didn't they have the the follow-up where you know i'd like to mention that we have enumerators we have people in the field and you know we just asked that you remember that these enumerators in the field are your community members they're our neighbors our nieces our nephews our you know aunties and uncles they've stepped up to the call to work for and support the census and we just want to remind the community to remember that when they come knocking at your door and you know know that it is a service they're they are there to help us get account for our communities so please you know remember that and be nice to them uh they're very why they're going to be nice yes yeah yeah also to add to hasu's um comment as well we actually are working with our local service providers who are servicing um we're providing services to our um you know our community members who are experiencing homelessness and we are going to be doing a massive effort this coming September 22 to 24 um we will be enumerating food kit of soup kitchens um and other areas for our um houses communities maybe during those dates so we are working closely with our state and local city governments and non-profit organizations who are working with homeless communities so that um you know so they know the people they know where they want yeah because yeah they know where to go and they already have again that established relationship with them and so we can have that um a better count and that's gonna be September 22 to 24 okay good next well what about the prisons that is under a group we call it a group quarter enumeration and our um operation side our aco is already work uh also is working with our um um correctional facilities on that so they will be counted um there wow this is a quite an operation yeah actually group quarters we're almost done hasu's right I want to say yeah yeah so we're at the end I mean we look to complete our our field work September 30 so right now you it's more of the the non-response follow-ups with our enumerators so that's really uh we're leaning towards the end of uh the census count now um what I've heard the Micronesian community was living in very close quarters and now they're talking about because of COVID to move them into a hotel so do you lose those people to get what happens in the count let's assume we've already done that neighborhood and now they're moved to a hotel do you lose track of them how what happens um that's a very interesting and you know very timely you know currently happening situation right um we have like this we actually have a not native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander partnership specialist and she just um talked to us about that um last Monday during our meeting so so glad she talked to us and you know shared um the current flight flight of you know our Pacific Islander community members um we are working closely with them um we have partnership specialists we're making sure that they are you know we have reached out to them and that you know they will be counted um yeah so one of our colleagues are already taking care of that situation but thank you for bringing that up we don't want to lose anybody definitely definitely yeah I'll add I mean um we are counted where we were April 1st so that's really the key date of where you where we were um and that's where when the questionnaire asks where were you uh living April 1st or where were you staying April 1st so that it doesn't get mixed up um so that's one of the key um points is to remember when you fill out the questionnaire if you have questions please you know feel free to call that number we have professionals available to assist you in many different languages but yes it is April 1st count but okay now assume that you are a barn student in dormitory I guess we didn't have people in dormitories April 1st did we everything was locked down but let's assume that you were in a dorm or you were still in school someplace and um that's where you were April 1st but now that you've gone back to where you were from let's say assume Australia what about that person are they still counted or or did we just lose them so actually um early on I think around May our um the census bureau um wrote to our um university leaderships across the country to make sure that we don't miss the counting our college students um during April 1st so we are working closely with universities as well um to make sure that um we don't miss that we didn't miss any of our students so there's a partnership there so even if they were foreign students they were still counted yes because we um yeah the university um is helping us make you know account for the students who are there now okay we everything is so screwy and they said they were going to stop the date early stop the counting early is that still or are we doing better now so in terms of um our end date September 30 yes so um we are doing really well um and we are trying to catch make sure that our we can be you know we are ready by our deadline of September 30 is Marsha okay yes and again want to post the contact number for anybody that didn't get it the first time the telephone number or web page or whatever so we can reach you yes just go to my 2020 census dot gov or call 844-330-2020 um and you can complete your uh census form as well now if i know somebody that didn't you know for some reason or other missed it as a just ordinary person can i somehow encourage them to to do this or doesn't as a just a neighbor or something you know let's assume that i have a neighbor that has dementia can i as a just ordinary person can i help can i do anything yes i we encourage everyone to share about filling out the census so we do encourage everyone to reach out to your friends your neighbors um the community and we have a lot of partners that are in our community nonprofits and for profits so for example the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Hawaii has events that are being uh collaborated with the census just to remind people you know the census is very important it you know it affects everything from the community small businesses to the legislature um so yes please remind your friends and family neighbors and at the same time if you see some virtual events out there you might see the census is right there alongside of it and we're excited to be able to you know just connect with our community and especially this time where we're all in this season um and we're seeking community interaction and all we have accessible right now is this virtual option we want to encourage everyone to stay flexible and and to stay connected um and this is one way right um so again nonprofits and for profits they're teamed up with the census and we just encourage everyone to take part okay and we at think tech our partner and i must tell you that it's been a pleasure being with both of you as usual and we'll see you next month census will be back with us but in the meantime if you have a neighbor that hasn't registered if you know anybody call the number and we are delighted and hopefully we can reach 100 before it's over before september so thank you asos and anime thank you so much it's always a pleasure being with you thank you so much miss marsha we're very happy to be joining this with you with you thank you for being there thank you so much mr marsha aloha and we'll see you next time