On Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau unveiled its $500 million public education and outreach campaign. Several ads are aimed specifically at the AAPI community.
The goal of the campaign (named “Shape your future. Start here.) is to count everyone living in the United States. It emphasizes how and why U.S. residents should fill out the census.
“The 2020 Census is your census, and its success depends on you. It’s a once-in-a-decade chance to inform how billions of dollars in funding are allocated for critical public services like hospitals and health care clinics, schools and education programs, roads and bridges, and emergency response for the next 10 years,” explained Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham in a press release from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The campaign also hopes to encourage participation from historically undercounted groups. The U.S. Census Bureau said it conducted extensive research to understand what motivates people to respond to the census and what prevents them from responding.
“Through advertising, public events, partnerships and digital and traditional media, we are embarking on a nationwide effort to let everyone in the country know about the upcoming 2020 Census and encourage them to respond online, by phone or by mail. And we are extremely committed to reaching those people who are historically undercounted. Today we will demonstrate how the “Shape your Future. Start here.” campaign will do just that.”
Many of the campaign’s advertisements are aimed at the AAPI community, which has been historically undercounted. The U.S. Census Bureau produced its own rendition of “This is Me,” a song from the movie The Greatest Showman. The rendition was performed by Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander artists and dancers across the country.
On January 14, the U.S. Census Bureau released ads in English and 12 other languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
The ads aimed at the AAPI community show daughters asking their fathers in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese or Tagalog to fill out the census.
The census count begins on January 21, in Toksook Bay, Alaska, The Washington Post reports. Census officials want to count residents their before many leave on hunting and fishing expeditions before Census Day (April 1).
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