10 questions in 50 languages

Last week, this column mentioned the deep mistrust many Americans have of their government. This week, the government is doing its best to convince them that it's working for the public good. It's hired Olympic skier Ryan St. Onge, current Miss America Caressa Cameron, and former teen star Donny Osmond to do testimonials on television and on YouTube. It's placed its advertising in fortune cookies and on paper plates at taco stands. It's using the power of Facebook and Twitter. And it's sending an army of government workers out to make sure it gets what it wants.

Kim Jong-Il might approve of the propaganda methods, but never fear: it's all in the name of democracy. We're talking about the census.

In order to have representative government, you have to know whom you're representing. So the constitution requires that the population be counted every 10 years to determine how many representatives each state has in Congress. Just as importantly, the number of representatives plus the number of senators equals the number of electors each state sends to the electoral college — which elects the president.

Comings and goings

So much migration happens — people moving from north to south, immigrants arriving all over — that big changes do occur whenever the numbers are tallied. Florida and Colorado, for example, are growing much faster than other states, and will be needed wins for the presidential candidates of 2012 and 2016. Census data is also used extensively in the apportionment of federal funds for things like highways, airports and other types of infrastructure — so the more (people), the merrier (the state).

The U.S. is the only developed country whose population is increasing rapidly. Every seven seconds, a child is born there. The high natural rate of increase — 2.05 children per woman — plays a big part, while immigration, both legal and illegal, adds 1.3 million people to the total population each year.

In October 2006, the U.S. population was 300 million. This April 1, on Census Day, it will reach 309 million. By 2050, it will be 439 million. Some analysts say this growth will allow America to remain an economic superpower even as China and India reach their full potential.

Now, it's the population that's counted, not just citizens. So states with a large proportion of immigrants are better represented than they would otherwise be, and said immigrants are represented indirectly even when they don't have the rights of citizens. Census time is thus when immigration critics tend to come out of the woodwork.

These critics are often awakened by the efforts of the Census Bureau to locate people who don't speak English, who aren't known to any authorities, who don't have a permanent address and who may not even want to be found.

The Bureau sends its brave workers into the ghetto to knock on every door and search for any subletters, squatters or recent arrivals. They will show a card with a message in 50 languages. If they encounter someone who does not speak English, that person may indicate which of these languages he or she does speak, and the worker will return with an interpreter.

The most efficient way to get information is through the mail. So the U.S. government is trying to acquire followers on Twitter (more than 2,800 so far) in order to remind them to send back the form they'll be getting next week. While past censuses asked questions about education, literacy and occupation, pressure from privacy advocates has reduced the 2010 census form to only 10 basic questions, mainly about name, residence and ethnicity.

Short and sweet. It could almost fit inside a fortune cookie.