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Thursday 10 March 2022
Native Americans fret as report card released on 2020 census

severely undercounted we
were.”
During the last census in
2010, there was a 4.8%
net undercount of Native
American and Alaskan Na-
tives living on reservations,
the highest of any race.
Black people were under-
counted by more than
2%, Hispanics were under-
counted by 1.5%, and
Asians were undercounted
by 0.08%. Non-Hispanic
whites were overcounted
by 0.8%.
Chavez thinks the under-
count will be higher for
Native Americans this time
around. While a handful
of pueblos saw high self-
response rates because
of previous investments in
broadband, others didn’t,
she said.
Many tribal lands were still
closed when census field
operations ended in mid-
October 2020. By then
plans had already gotten
complicated.
The Census Bureau initially
planned for up to 1,000
census takers to spread out
Activists hold signs promoting Native American participation in the U.S. census in front of a mural of Crow Tribe historian and across the Navajo Nation
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Joe Medicine Crow on the Crow Indian Reservation in Lodge Grass, Mont., on Aug. 26,
2020. — the largest Native Ameri-
Associated Press can reservation in the U.S.,
spanning 27,000 square
Continued from Front and encouraged others to funding each year and to cial media, the radio and miles (69,000 square kilo-
do the same. He said some determine congressional through videos produced meters) in Utah, New Mex-
The 2020 census figures tribal members might have representation. Montana in eight Indigenous lan- ico and Arizona. It ended
showed there are now 9.7 been reluctant to open the gained a congressional guages. They passed out up with less than 300 at the
million people who are doors for a census taker seat after the latest census, coloring books with census peak, said James Tucker,
American Indian and Alas- who went door to door in but Arizona fell short of the messaging, deployed Wi-Fi an attorney with the Law-
ka Native either alone or in Supai Village, deep in a numbers needed to add hot spots to help communi- yer’s Committee for Civil
combination with another gorge off the Grand Can- one. ties struggling with internet Rights who chairs a Census
race — a significant in- yon. The tribal self-response rate access and printed flyers Bureau advisory commit-
crease from the 5.2 million “It is uncertain how our among Arizona tribes, not to let people know head tee.
in 2010. census count is zero be- including the Navajo Na- start centers, health care North Dakota state Rep.
The numbers don’t line up cause obviously we as a tion, was less than 27%. and housing are funded Marvin Nelson, whose dis-
with tribes’ own enrollment tribe do exist, and we do Tribes in Montana and through census data, trict includes the Turtle
figures, in part because have tribal members and the Dakotas didn’t fare Chavez said. Mountain Band of Chip-
the census allows people other residents who live in much better. Washington “We went above and be- pewa reservation, is wor-
to self-identify. Tribes have Supai,” Siyuja said Tuesday. state had the highest self- yond, like miracle workers,” ried about a severe under-
stricter criteria for enroll- Up until the 20th century, response rate for tribes at she said. count in his district since
ment that can include cal- Native Americans weren’t around 60%. The Klamath Tribes, based census operations were in-
culating one’s percentage regularly counted in the Even before Thursday’s re- in Chiloquin, Oregon, did terrupted by the pandem-
of ancestry or tracing lin- once-a-decade census. sults are released, tribal raffles and drive-thru din- ic. He said his county was
eage to a list of names. They first were counted leaders worried the coro- ner events to help people pegged at having 12,000
Still, evidence that people on reservations and in the navirus pandemic would fill out the census and drew residents in the 2020 cen-
were missed can be star- general population in 1900, contribute to an under- attention in a video to in- sus, while federal numbers
tlingly obvious. For exam- decades before the U.S. count. accurate figures for tribal put the tribal population
ple, census data showed considered them citizens. Tribes across the country housing in the 2010 cen- alone at 17,500 people.
the Havasupai Tribe in More recent changes allow shut down their reserva- sus. Tribal Councilwoman “The way the census was
northern Arizona had no Native Americans, Alaska tions, making follow-up Willa Powless said the data conducted was really
one who self-responded to Natives and other Indig- interviews with unrespon- showed 38 homes on the problematic,” Nelson said
the census. enous peoples to write in sive households almost im- tribe’s land, but the tribe last week. “Almost no one
The tribe’s chairman, Thom- their ties to specific tribes or possible for door-knocking had more than 80. got a census mailing, and
as Siyuja Sr., said that’s im- communities. census takers and forcing “That really motivated peo- then due to COVID, there
possible because he knows The numbers matter be- advocates to get creative. ple to want to participate,” was no home-to-home”
people who filled out the cause they are used to dis- In New Mexico, tribal advo- she said. “It was a shock for door-knocking by census
census online and by mail tribute $1.5 trillion in federal cates campaigned on so- tribal members to see how takers.q