Abiding by the rules of the US Constitution, every ten years all residents living in the United States must be counted. However, one group of people is perennially undercounted: Native Americans, the first people.
Agatha Armstrong, Executive Assistant for the Grand Portage Tribal Council attended the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) Executive Board meeting in Saint Paul on February 17 and read a letter to the board concerning the importance of the census count. Her letter stated in part, “I am representing the Minnesota Tribal Coalition/Hub which was created to address the historical undercount of our Native American relatives in Minnesota to ensure a complete count in the 2020 census.
We are a group of civic-minded individuals from 11 nations in Minnesota who have been appointed as liaisons by you, our tribal leaders, to be the contact persons for the U.S. Census Bureau and to lead the census efforts in our communities.”
“One of the major events that we are planning is to have pow wows or other public events in each of our communities, taking place simultaneously throughout the state on March 21, 2020; we will declare and celebrate this day as ‘2020 Census Pow Wow Day’. We want to indigenize the census and make it ours, imagine the energy that will be created that day?”
Following the complete reading of her letter, the MIAC board passed a resolution declaring March 21, 2020, as the 2020 Census Pow Wow Day. The resolution was sent to Governor Tim Waltz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan who will hopefully proclaim March 21 as Census Pow Wow Day.
Impact of the census
The impact of the final census count determines how many seats are awarded in Congress, as well as the allocation of up to $900 billion in federal annual spending, including $5.6 billion dedicated to tribal programs.
A poor census count means a reservation will receive less dollars for housing, roads and maintenance, elder care, health care, education and so on.
Nationally, Dee Alexander is the coordinator in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs for the U.S. Census Bureau charge of the Census Bureau intergovernmental tribal-affairs. Alexander stated, “We want to get the word out that numbers are power. Numbers are money.”
Leave a Reply