NALEO Educational Fund, CommUniverCity San Jose, Somos Mayfair, and SIREN Join on Census Outreach in San Jose

-The NALEO Educational Fund, CommUniverCity San Jose, Somos Mayfair and SIREN (Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network) join forces on the ya es hora !HAGASE CONTAR! Census Campaign (It Is Time, Make Yourself Count!) to inform and motivate the area’s growing Latino community to be counted.

The U.S. Census Bureau has had a poor track record when it comes to including Latinos. The 2000 Census produced an undercount of Latinos of around 3% (or one million Latinos). The ya es hora, ¡HAGASE CONTAR! initiative enhances the Bureau’s efforts to count Latinos through a sustained and aggressive community education effort to mobilize hundreds of local organizations.

We invite community leaders to join us for a press conference and comprehensive training on how to join the campaign and help achieve a full and accurate count of Latinos in the 2010 Census in Santa Clara County.

The training will be conducted in Spanish and English to provide resources and a tailored engagement strategy to assist Latino elected officials, local leaders and organizations with outreach to their hard-to-count communities.

The event will take place on Monday, February 22 at Santa Maria Goretti Parish, 2980 Senter Rd. in San Jose from 11:00am – 1:00pm.

“A census that fails to accurately count all Latinos is a failed census,” says NALEO’s executive Arturo Vargas, who will be Monday’s press conference and training. “As a community we need to understand that full participation in American life requires standing up and being counted.”

The ya es hora ¡HAGASE CONTAR! campaign focuses on promoting the importance of the Census, educating individuals about filling out their census forms and encouraging households to mail back their responses once they complete their forms. This phase of the coalition’s work builds on the success of the 2007 ya es hora ¡Ciudadanía! campaign, in which 1.4 million legal permanent residents became U.S. citizens, and the 2008 ya es hora ¡Ve y Vota! campaign of 2008, in which nearly ten million Latinos exercised their right to vote in the presidential election.

About the ya es hora Campaign

The ya es hora campaign is the largest and most comprehensive non-partisan effort to incorporate Latinos as full participants in the American political process. The campaign has dramatically impacted naturalization rates and spurred record Latino turnout in the 2008 presidential election.

Contact:

NALEO Educational Fund
Lydia Zendejas, 831-207-0865
lzendejas@naleo.org“

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