They make sure everyone counts
Outreach from Capital District Latinos aims to boost census participation
ALBANY — “Hola, señora!” Cessie Alfonso yelled through the window of one of Arbor Hill’s Skyline Garden apartments. “No somos Jehovah’s Witness — did you do your census?”
Alfonso and Luz Marquez Benbow went door to door on a recent Wednesday afternoon, following each knock with yells through the windows — just in case they were being ignored.
“Hello, we’re from the cen — Capital District Latinos,” Benbow yelled in front of one home, deciding to change course before completing the word "census."
Benbow, who is Black and Puerto Rican, and Alfonso, who is Black, Puerto Rican and Cuban, were contracted by Capital District Latinos for the month of September to help increase census completion in communities of color, particularly the Latino community. The nonprofit organization received a $15,000 grant from Albany County through state census grant funding that could be spent from Aug. 24 to Sept. 30 in order to improve census turnout.
The deadlines for counting households that didn’t complete census forms on their own have shifted several times between Sept. 30, Oct 5 and Oct. 31 in the past few weeks. Finally, Oct. 31 was set by a federal court ruling in California.
As of September 30, the census self-response rate in Albany was 54.7 percent. But in the city ’s census tracts that have more residents of color, the self-response rate ranged from as low as 33.5 percent to, at most, 45.8 percent.
The two women were cautious about how they presented themselves to Albany residents, making sure those in their homes know Benbow and Alfonso are one of them — not social workers or missionaries, or government employees, or census takers, just Capital District Latinos.
“The hardest thing is getting them to trust us,” Benbow told the Times Union.
So they dressed casually, left their ipads behind and projected their humor to gain trust.
“It’s critical to have us using humor. Humor is one of the ways in which you
communicate a culture, racial and experiential affinity to that other person,” Alfonso said. “That’s why people open their door.”
When they set up tables in front of places such as Capital District Latinos or the Latino barber shop on Central Avenue, Alfonso made sure to bring her speakers to blast some salsa music, which never fails to attract more people.
“We found the level of distrust has partly to do with the fact that there has not been historically and consistently an outreach to the Hispanic community,” Alfonso said.
Alfonso and Benbow pointed
to mistrust also fueled by xenophobic rhetoric in the current Trump administration, which has stoked fear in immigrant — and particularly Latino — communities and has dissuaded them from engaging with anything government-related. But there has also been incredible confusion surrounding the census, as the federal government has been sued over multiple attempted changes to the count — from adding a citizenship question (which was barred by the Supreme Court) to not counting undocumented immigrants for apportionment (also barred by a federal judge) and moving the deadline to complete the count multiple times.
The main fears Benbow and Alfonso encountered over the
past month were undocumented immigrants who feared U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be able to find them if they filled out the census, and formerly incarcerated individuals who believed they would not be counted because of felony convictions. One pair of younger men, Benbow recalled, were convinced filling out the census would allow the government to track them.
They also said federal, state and local governments have needed to invest more in reaching out to communities of color in advance of the census deadline.
“Clearly, members of marginalized groups have very little trust of the federal government, that in our current political environment does not provide reassurance to the Latino community that the government is on their side,” Alfonso said.
Benbow ’s last count showed she and Alfonso got 50 people to complete their census and contacted over 150, though she had yet to update that number Friday afternoon.
In addition to getting residents to complete their census, though, Alfonso and Benbow ’s goal was to encourage community members to be politically, socially and civically active in the community.
As Alfonso said goodbye to Essie Goodlett after helping her complete her census, Goodlett told her, “It’s important that we do the census and get counted.” Alfonso walked away beaming with pride.