Rites of passage to census<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Katague\u2019s father had his early years of medical practice in the 1960s in Kansas City. When she was 10 years old, her family moved to a new subdivision in Modesto, California, where she had an experience that forever changed her perspective on the decennial count.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The father of her best friend in the neighborhood had a stroke and was taken from their house in an ambulance. But because the hospital was far from where they lived, the stroke damaged him seriously.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That terrible memory has always reminded her that if the federal government had allocated more resources to their neighborhood, there might have been a hospital nearby that could have given her friend\u2019s father immediate care.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI always wonder, if that ER was even 10 minutes closer, would he have suffered less damage? Would he have been able to walk on his own?\u201d Katague said. \u201cIf we are not counted, those facilities or things that we need would be a lot farther away.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Census participation in California<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In an effort to achieve a complete count in California, and despite the difficulties of achieving that during the coronavirus pandemic, Katague continues to encourage communities across the state to participate in the census.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As of June 28, she said, California\u2019s count rate was 68% \u2014 more than 9 million households have submitted their census questionnaires by phone, online or mail. The state\u2019s rate is higher than the 61.8% national average.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
San Mateo, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Marin, Orange and Ventura counties lead California\u2019s census responses.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a huge achievement, considering what we are facing right now, but we still have a lot further to go,\u201d Katague said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Those most at-risk of going uncounted in the census include minorities, immigrants, residents in hard-to-reach or remote areas, renters and children ages 5 and under.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201c[Census] brings the fair share of our representation back to our communities, and that\u2019s why it is really important,\u201d Katague said. \u201cBut most importantly, as Filipino Americans, it shows how we are growing and to have the data [that does] not just lump us [all] in with Asian American and Pacific Islanders.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Challenges in the Filipino community<\/strong><\/p>\nAnecdotal evidence suggests that Filipinos who don\u2019t participate in the census are mostly undocumented immigrants and those who are too busy with work, especially those with multiple jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe census is safe and confidential, but I get the fear,\u201d Katague said. \u201cMany of our hardest-to-count populations \u2026 our TNTs (undocumented) within the Filipino community are definitely like, \u2018I\u2019m not going to answer that.\u2019 But we need the data to understand the impact that Filipino Americans are having on a lot of different things \u2026 especially during this time of COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deadline to submit the questionnaire to the U.S. Census Bureau has been extended to Oct. 31 because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Katague acknowledges that many households in the Filipino community are composed of multigenerational families, which poses challenges to count.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have those living with lola <\/em>(grandmother) or lolo<\/em> (grandfather) and staying with them, or tita<\/em> (aunt) is staying over, and then they\u2019ll often see an undercount because they won\u2019t report everyone,\u201d Katague said. \u201cMaybe tita<\/em>\u2019s not supposed to be living there at that time, or maybe they think they\u2019ll get their own forms. But since the housing crisis, we have seen houses that are doubling up.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Is Filipino Asian or Pacific Islander?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Katague is American, born and bred. She attended American public schools, and established her career mostly in American public service.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By identifying herself as Filipino, her ethnicity offers a thread, a more significant meaning for her commitment that every Filipino living in California and the United States \u2014\u00a0 young and old, documented and undocumented, biracial and multiracial \u2014 gets counted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Katague talked about how being a Filipino American has shaped her personal and political identity, and she mused aloud about questions her own daughter grapples with.<\/p>\n
The teenager is multiethnic \u2014 half Filipino, a quarter Italian and a quarter Irish.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to the Census Bureau, an individual\u2019s response to the race question<\/a> is based upon self-identification. The Bureau does not tell individuals which boxes to mark or what heritage to write in. Instead, the questionnaire gives the respondent the option to self-identify with more than one race or ethnicity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter is also trying to find her identity,\u201d Katague said. \u201cShe\u2019d say, \u2018Mom, we are the Latinos of Asia.\u2019 But the census gives her the opportunity to choose her identity \u2014 the way anybody wants to choose it. Now, she\u2019d say, \u2018Mom, I\u2019d only fill out Filipino,\u2019 because that\u2019s what I identify with and that\u2019s what resonates with her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Anthony Advincula Ditas Katague, Director...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26889"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26892,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26889\/revisions\/26892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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