Nick Jimenez

Sunday, March 26, 2000

Counting bloody noses

I love peace and quiet. And that's usually what we have at our humble abode: serenity and tranquility. Oh, there is the occasional disturbance of this placid scene whenever, say, someone (OK, me) forgets to take out the trash.
   Or when someone (not me) yet again forgets to place those dratted car keys where they're supposed to be and would be if only that someone would put them in the same place every time, but doesn't, instead putting them willy-nilly anywhere from the front door to the kitchen - well, it's quiet most of the time.
   That is, things were peaceful until the census form arrived this week.
   This was the week that millions of households across America received the forms from the Bureau of the Census as part of our decennial count. Millions of dollars in federal funding are riding on the best count we can get of the number of people in the country. The best estimate now, according to the Bureau's Web site, is about 274 million, give or take a hundred thousand or so.
   Add the fact that the census will be the basis for redrawing political lines and the vital importance of every recipient filling out the forms and returning them becomes crystal clear.
   Being good citizens and wanting to do our part in this great nose count, we got our form out and began filling in the blanks and crossing in the boxes. That's when the trouble started.
   I should have known there was danger ahead given the political spectrum in our household. When representatives of all precincts in our family are gathered, the political poles are pretty well covered.
   We have members with philosophies so conservative that the Sun King, King Louis XIV, could hardly quarrel with most of their tenets. Then we have members so far on the liberal side that they could be confused as soul mates with Eugene V. Debs, the American socialist.
   Then we have the strictly apolitical, whose views can be summed up as "whatever."
   We were OK through the first couple of questions: name, address, home ownership, telephone numbers, sex, age. Then question 8 came up.
   "Is this person Spanish/Hispanic/ Latino?" followed by choices of "No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino", "Yes Mexican, Mexican-Am., Chicano," "Yes, other Spanish/Hispanic/ Latino" (with space to fill in what that "other" might be), "Yes, Puerto Rican," "Yes, Cuban."
   The only agreement was that we weren't Puerto Rican or Cuban, but other than that, the fissures of disagreement went every which way.
   We had the "No way I'm going to be categorized under little government boxes" sentiments nicely balanced by the "I'm Mexican until they pry my cold dead fingers off my molcajete," which sounded pretty brave until I realized we don't even have such a mortar.
   Then we had those agonizing between marking themselves both Mexican-American and Chicano.
   Us, Chicanos? That's a word associated in our minds with strident activists and people who march carrying banners. Good grief, we're a bunch of Volvo drivers.
   "Mark me 'other Spanish,' " said one. Yeah, right. Apparently this person has the idea of being the offspring of gypsies. No, it seemed to me that if we mark one thing, we all mark the same thing. Wrong again, compadre.
   There were even some votes for marking the "No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino." Ward Connerly, the anti-affirmative action leader from California, would have been proud.
   I should have reminded everyone at this point that the Census says there's a $500 fine for answering untruthfully on the forms. But given this crowd, I figured, no, let the bureau fix its own problems.
   It is reported that the Census Bureau received 600,000 phone calls in the first 24 hours after the first deliveries of the forms. Most of the calls were complaints about the questions about race.
   It's important that we get the most accurate nose count possible. I just hope we don't get too many of those noses bloodied in the process.
  

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