I worked as a census enumerator for one month.
Before my training for the job began, I took an oath of data privacy, which means I am sworn to secrecy for life not to divulge any personal information about the people that I interviewed. I mention this now to assure you that nothing I am writing here breaks that oath. To be honest, I haven’t retained any of that information anyways.
What I can share with you are my general experiences as an enumerator.
My role was primarily to go to addresses where no one had reported any information about residency. Often the reason for this was that no one was living at that address on April 1 (official census day). Or that the address simply doesn’t exist. Or that the address is a business and not a home. It was a bit like detective work at times, talking to neighbors or property managers or people who had moved in over the summer to verify vacancy.
Sometimes there were fun discoveries, like abandoned farmsteads hiding in the middle of cornfields. Driving around scenic country roads from one unique property to another was my favorite part of the job. I never know what to expect at the end of each dirt road or long, winding driveway.
There were moments when I felt very unsafe. If a property was especially remote and populated primarily by dead cars and No Trespassing signs, I feared a threatening reception to my presence. One sign explicitly threatened my death, saying “If you are found here tonight you will be found here in the morning”, accompanied by the image of a gun. Most properties like this I found no one at home, so I was able to leave quickly.
I encountered rental properties where I did not expect to find them. I encountered poverty in locations and severity levels I wasn’t expecting. I also encountered wealth in places and manifestations I wasn’t anticipating. I came across migrant housing where I didn’t know it existed. In those cases, with my official federal employee badge and government-issue shoulder bag, I was the one causing residents to feel threatened.
For the most part, however, I could not predict what kind of reception I would get just from looking at the property. Regardless of economic or political identity, some people were welcoming and some were hostile. Many were cooperative but wary.
I encountered a lot of white privilege and a lot of toxic masculinity. People who weren’t used to being asked about their race and gender recoiled at these census questions, laughed or glared at me, looked confused when I explained these where things I was not permitted to assume about them. I received multiple comments about how they were surprised there were only two gender options, not because there ought to be more, but because “kids these days keep making up whatever they want to be”. The vast majority of white people I interviewed, besides being adamant about their whiteness, could not identify their ancestors’ countries of origin. Sometimes they couldn’t manage to admit that they were actually white, they were just definitely not any of those other races that I listed as options. A few simply identified their race as “American” and expected me to extrapolate from there.
What kept me going through all these experiences is my belief that everyone in this nation deserves to be counted. For the sake of population counts that influence decisions about school districts, legislative districts, and congressional representation. So that we can receive the community services and federal funding allocations we need. So that librarians and public health workers and social workers and other government employees can look at the data and understand the facts about the populations they serve instead of relying on their own biases or limited perspectives.
In the midst of the pandemic, the political climate, the natural disasters, and every other major force affecting our lives this year, I am concerned that this census will not result in an accurate count of American residents, which will affect all the benefits we gain from the census in the next 10 years. For an excellent analysis of these dangers, read this New York Times editorial: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/opinion/sunday/census-trump-republicans.html
My enumerating days are now finished, and I feel confident that my area is fairly well accounted for. My concern goes out to the enumerators and residents of other parts of the country where that is not the case. This is a difficult year to do an already difficult job.
Angie Gustafson 