WASHINGTON, DC: The 1990 Census is scheduled for April 1, and all residents of the United States are, by law, required to fill in the census forms. The same law (Title 13, U.S. Code), guaranties that the census form remains confidential for 72 years and no one but the Census Bureau employees can see it.
The last decade has seen perhaps the greatest increase in the numbers of Sikh immigrants to the United States. As recent immigrants, they have to fulfill their duty and have to participate in the census so that it accurately reflects their numbers.
Census forms are mailed to residences, and census takers visit the homes of those whose forms have not been received by the bureau by April 1.
It is used to help the planners to determine which facilities such as hospitals, schools, etc. are needed where, how many seats an area will have in the Congress and the House, the allocation of federal funds and so on. To take an example, if a sufficient number of people identify Punjabi as their mother tongue, their it will have a place in the school systems in future.
A monumental task is soon to be undertaken the 1990 census and about a week to ten days before April 1 most of the households, an estimated 106 million units in the country will receive questionaries’ by mail, others will have them delivered by the census takers.
‘We urge all Sikhs to make sure they are counted. It entails answering questions on household relationship, sex, race, age, year of birth, marital status, type of housing unit, whether it is rented or owned, and so on. Information which one would normally not like to disclose be informed, however that the information given for a census is confidential, no agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service, FBI the military and even courts, can get any specific information about you. In fact the personal information of the 1990 census will be locked up till the year, 2062.
We write this exhortation early so as to shake you up, to ask you to take the initiative in informing the community about this important event and mobilizing the Sikhs for the census. It will help the planners to determine which facilities such as hospitals, schools etc. are needed where, how many seats your area will have in the Congress and the House, how much of the federal funds your area and your state will get and so on. If you don’t fill your census form, you are falling in an important social and civic duty. There is nothing in it for you materially, but there is a lot which you may lose for you and your family’s future if you don’t get yourself counted.
Sikhs are a distinct ethnic group, a fact which was recognized by the House of Lords in United Kingdom also when it ruled that forcing Sikhs to wear motorcycle helmets instead of turbans would be ethnically discriminating them.
In your census form, you will be asked your race (Question 4). You should write SIKH in the column, other race, a subsection of other Asian or Pacific Islander (API). Similarly we urge you to answer Question 13 on your ancestry or ethnic origin as SIKH, and identify PUNJABI as the language you speak at home, if you indeed do so (Question 15b).
‘The Sikh community has immigrated to the United States in large numbers in the last decade, as the repression against us increased in India. We came to the US for the same reasons as most other immigrants did, since we considered it a land of opportunity to escape our persecution. We now have to stand up and be counted. Participating in the census is our civic and social duty which will also help to shape our future in our adopted country.
Urge all whom you meet to tell others about the importance of being counted in the census.
We have to make sure that we are not counted out as has happened in the past when the predominately Hindu census takers in Punjab would enumerate them under the category of Hindus; they even went to the extent of putting in the mother tongue as Hindi rather than Punjabi.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 23, 1990
