Did US Census undercount Latinos? Here’s how California found hard-to-reach residents

Preliminary findings released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau show that states with large Latino populations like Texas, Florida and Arizona did not gain the congressional representation that demographers expected, raising questions about a possible undercount among Latinos.

California, another state with a large Latino population, was among seven to lose a congressional seat. It marks the first time in the state’s history that its congressional delegation will shrink.

Before this week, demographers had expected Texas to gain three congressional seats and Florida to pick up two. Independent projections also suggested Arizona would gain a seat.

Instead, Texas is adding two seats, Florida is gaining one and Arizona’s delegation will remain flat.

”The initial results are surprising enough that once more details are released, we will be able to better determine to what extent the Latino population was fairly and accurately counted,” said Arturo Vargas, CEO of the NALEO Educational Fund, in a statement.

California bucked the trend somewhat in that demographers had expected it to lose at least one seat because of its slowed population growth.

In fact, it was closer to losing a second congressional seat than it was to keeping one, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

California was 284,400 residents away from losing a second seat in the House of Representatives, according to the Census Bureau. In order to keep its 53 congressional seats, California would have needed to count 478,806 additional people.

Anticipating the risk of an undercount, California officials spent about $200 million on Census outreach over four years.

The state’s efforts resulted in a 69.6% Census self-response rate, surpassing the national average of 67%.

California’s response rate also beat out Texas at 62.8% and Florida at 63.8%. Texas and Florida did not develop their own state Census committees, according to the Associated Press.

Luis Alvarado, a Republican political strategist, said that Latinos and African Americans have historically been under-represented in the once-in-a-decade count due to community distrust of government entities.

“California did a much better job of educating Latinos in the state to participate in the census than the state of Texas did with their Latino communities,” Alvarado said.

COVID-19 presented new challenges for census outreach, which could have limited the effectiveness of the state’s campaign. Throughout the health crisis, Latino communities across the state bore the brunt of the pandemic. Data from the California Department of Public Health shows that Latinos make up about half of the state’s COVID-19 cases and deaths.

“During the count, it was Latino communities that were having really high rates of infections and deaths, which also definitely impacted the way in which people view the priority of a census,” said Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, director of research for the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative at UCLA. “When your community is dying, you don’t really care so much about participating in the census.”

Until the Census Bureau releases more detailed information, experts say it’s hard to calculate if there was an undercount among Latinos in California. Additionally, leaders from statewide Latino civic engagement groups say COVID-19 closures and the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies could have prevented some from participating in the 2020 Census count.

Trump administration’s Census policies

Samuel Molina, state director for Latino civic engagement organization Mi Familia Vota said former President Donald Trump’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the census and memorandum to exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census apportionment base dissuaded Latinos from participating.

Alvarado said the Trump administration’s policies had a chilling effect on Latino communities even though both efforts were shot down in court.

“Many were discouraged,” he said, from participating in the Census.

That’s why it was critical for the state, according to Maricela Rodriguez, director of civic engagement and strategic partnerships for the ‎Office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, to reach Latino communities with accurate information about the Census.

She said the state relayed that there was no citizenship question on the census and showed why it was important for everyone to participate in the Census regardless of a person’s immigration status.

“Those were all really important messages for us to continue a steady drumbeat on anything that we could do to clear up confusion or misinformation,” Rodriguez said. “We did everything that we could to do our best to reach the Latino population.”

Outreach barriers amid pandemic

Molina said conducting Census outreach during the coronavirus pandemic presented unexpected challenges for his organization.

“The shelter-in-place orders eviscerated our door-to-door canvassing efforts,” he said.

On a typical year, Molina said the organization would canvas neighborhoods, talk to members of the community in person and hold large in-person events to encourage people to participate in the decennial count. Instead, amid the statewide closures, the group turned to virtual events, social and traditional media outreach and phone banking.

Overall, Molina said the state did a good job with partnering and funding nonprofit organizations that were conducting Census outreach on the ground.

“California did more than enough to not just count Latinos, but to count all Californians in the last census,” said Christian Arana, vice president of policy for the Latino Community Foundation. “The fact that California lost a seat — I would actually declare that a victory for us because it could have been a lot worse.”

Language barriers, a lack of broadband internet connection or computers and the fact that many Latinos rent their homes make accurately counting Latino communities more difficult, he said.

Dominguez-Villegas said the Latino population in California has grown by 1.5 million residents between 2010 and 2019. He said there’s a possibility Latinos in California were undercounted, but won’t know to what extent until further Census Bureau results are released.

This story was originally published April 29, 2021 at 5:00 AM.