This weekend, the Carnaval parade in the Mission brought together tens of thousands of individuals, most of whom were ethnic minorities. Dozens of Central American, South American and Caribbean nationalities were represented. All of these people are classified as “hard-to-reach individuals” by the U.S. Census Bureau.

In addition to the elaborate floats that represented community organizations, schools, arts organizations and nations, government agencies like BART and government partners like the Sunset Scavengers had their own floats. One organization that was noticeably absent from the parade: The United States Census Bureau.

For an organization that touts how many millions of dollars it will save for each household that returns Census forms on time (by Census Day, April 1, 2010), the Census Bureau’s outreach to self-proclaimed “hard-to-reach” groups has been sub-par.

Yes, the Census Bureau had a tiny stall staffed by two bilingual workers at Carnaval’s accompanying festival. But this stall was inadequate. Only a fraction of the parade’s attendees walked past it, let alone stopped to speak with the representatives.

Hopefully the Census Bureau will learn from this mistake and correct this problem for next year’s festivities, which fall after Census Day, but before all of the surveys are due back to the federal government.

Stephen Robert Morse
Executive Editor of MyTwoCensus.com