Call for Census Boycott is Not Very Smart

PHOENIX (By Jon Garrido, The Jon Garrido News Network) April 16, 2009 — When I was very young, from my home town of Superior, Arizona, a shopping trip into downtown Phoenix not only was a necessity, it was an exiting adventure to the big city. In the early 50s, downtown Phoenix was a exciting shopping destination. There were shoppers everywhere going in and out of downtown stories and we looked similar to other shoppers — Hispanic.

In those days, an unsaid truth was downtown Phoenix was close to south Phoenix and everyone knew the area south of the Salt River was where all Hispanics lived — all!

Even during the mid 80s to early 90s, it seem we were the only Hispanics living in the Pinnacle Peak area of north Scottsdale and even fewer as we shopped and went to church in Carefree at Our Lady of Joy.

Today, Hispanics are found throughout the Phoenix area. We are as abundant as all other populations and in some cases, Hispanics are even more prevalent in key areas of Phoenix.

When we were few, there were even fewer Hispanic legislators and of more importance, there were few Hispanic businesses.

Today, Hispanic businesses are major component of the economic engine of Phoenix and even though our numbers are stagnant in this declining economy as the economy begins to return and exceed where we once were, Hispanic businesses will be ahead of the curve once again to become a major component of the vitality of Phoenix.

All of this has to do with growth of the Phoenix Hispanic community which is the same for most markets in the southern half of the United States.

With more than 46 million people, Nuevo Hispania is the 27th-largest nation on Earth and the fourth largest in the Western Hemisphere. Its residents wield $1 trillion of buying power in the marketplace. Even as the rest of the economy contracts in the global recession, Nuevo Hispania remains a thriving, even booming, market that’s expected to grow by 48 percent in the next four years.

And it’s not even a real country.

The imaginary “Nuevo Hispania” is actually a substantial segment of the U.S. population. Hispanics now account for more than 17 percent of the U.S. populace as the nation’s largest minority group. And while other demographic sectors are growing only incrementally, the Hispanic population is exploding: The Census Bureau projects 30 percent of Americans will be Hispanic by 2050 and by 2097, 50% of all Americans will be Hispanic.

The Hispanic market’s growing clout comes even as the recession takes a harsh toll on Hispanic workers. The elimination of tens of thousands of construction jobs has hit the sector particularly hard, sending the national unemployment rate for Hispanic males to 11 percent.

For decades, businesses and cultural institutions could afford to ignore the Hispanic market. Now, they are chasing it aggressively, because that’s where the money is.

That poses a big challenge. Underrepresented for decades in U.S. commerce and media, Hispanic Americans long ago developed our own commercial, cultural and media channels. And that means companies and institutions can’t just throw open the doors and expect Hispanics to come in.

Those companies and institutions must go to the customer but first the size of the customer base needs to be measured and that means, the customer base needs to be counted. Yes — counted!

It is numbers that detail size and it is growth projections that move markets that creates jobs that provide income and without income we have nothing.

Of equal importance, population numbers are the only measurement gauge of allocating federal money given to cities and states and this is not just a small of money. It is a substantial allocation of federal monies to pay for public works projects such as streets, buildings, water and sewer to social, medical, and education activities such as medical care, schools and even numbers have a direct impact on immigration reform.

Yes ― immigration reform. Remember it is the U.S. Congress that is responsible for writing and approving legislation and this specifically means ― immigration reform.

Federal funding and apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are based on a Census of the population every 10 years. Not counting the estimated 12 million immigrants who are here undocumented would send less money to states and cities that have large numbers of undocumented residents and could shift political clout elsewhere.

Two congressional seats are seen coming to Arizona in the next round of apportionment in 2010 with Phoenix probably receive an additional congressional seat.

All of this is predicated on growth of Arizona's population and growth of the Hispanic population within the City of Phoenix is projected in 2010 to surpass 50% of the entire population of the City of Phoenix.

This will be a significant milestone not only as a symbolic event but will clearly enhance ability of the Phoenix Hispanic community to become the major force in all that happens in Phoenix, Arizona.

Some Hispanic advocacy groups are calling for undocumented immigrants to boycott the 2010 Census unless immigration laws are changed. This move for a boycott puts them at odds with leading immigrant rights advocates and creates another hurdle in the Census Bureau's quest to count everyone in the USA.

The National Coalition of Hispanic Clergy & Christian Leaders, a group that says it represents 20,000 evangelical churches in 34 states, issued a statement this week urging undocumented immigrants not to fill out Census forms unless Congress passes "genuine immigration reform."

Similar grass-roots campaigns are unfolding in Arizona and New Mexico to protest state and local crackdowns on undocumented immigrants. Asking immigrants to be counted without giving them a chance to become legal residents counters church teachings, says the Rev. Miguel Rivera, president of the Hispanic religious coalition.

When the Census counts growing numbers of Hispanics, the counts are often used to support crackdowns on undocumented immigrants, he says. About 38% of the churches' 3.4 million members are undocumented, he says. The Census Bureau does not ask people if they are here undocumented.

"Our job is to count every single person," says Raul Cisneros, Census spokesman. "We are disappointed any organization would urge anyone to not participate in the 2010 Census."

"We know it will hurt a lot of cities," Rivera says.

That's the bargaining chip boycott supporters are using to lobby lawmakers to issue temporary work visas for undocumented workers and give them a way to become citizens.

The call for a boycott "may be well-intended but misguided and ultimately irresponsible," says Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Elected Officials and a member of a Census advisory panel.

"There is a sense of desperation and frustration among some immigrant rights leaders" Congress has not taken action on such issues, Vargas says. They should give the new administration a chance, he says.

That is not allaying concerns in states that have imposed sanctions on employers who hire undocumented immigrants or in cities and counties that have given police the power to enforce immigration laws.

In Phoenix, Alfredo Gutierrez, host of a daily radio program on a Spanish station, threaten a Census boycott to protest crackdowns on undocumented immigrants.

In Roswell, N.M., businessman Bobby Villegas launched a campaign in February to get undocumented workers to boycott the Census. He's doing it as the city nears 50,000 population, a mark that would give it the government designation as a metropolitan area, which puts cities on the map for national marketers and retailers.

"Are we going to bring more money in the community so they can hire more police officers who then will go out after more undocumented?" Villegas asks.

The Roswell Hispano Chamber of Commerce he helped found voiced support for the Census, but "it's going to be very hard to reach these individuals and say, 'Trust me,' " says Juan Oropesa, executive director.

"Trust me" is not an easy sell in Roswell nor in Phoenix and for that matter, not in any city in the United States, but trust is necessary because living in America is all about the numbers.

It is about the number who turn out to vote, the number who buy consumer goods and services and it is about the number of our children who are educated and who are our future.

Cutting off one's nose to show opposition to the number counting is to spite one's face. All Hispanics and in particular, the undocumented, should embrace the number counting for some day, not to far in the future, Hispanics will no longer have to hide in the shadows because it will be the number counting that will make us a political and economic force to be reckoned with.

It will be our huge numbers that will bring us out of the shadows into the light of America.

— Jon Garrido