Census 2000 - Everyone from Indian subcontinent is Asian Indian

[mohabbat]

In the US Census 2000 form , all US residents from Indian subcontinent are categorised under one category ' ASIAN INDIAN' (Asian so as ot to confuse with American Indians). All residents of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SriLanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan are categorised as ASIAN INDIANS.

Will Pakistanis object US census if they are classified as Indians?

[ZZ]

Reminds me a story on apartheid days in South Africa. A tourist was on the beach and said 'well, this is indian ocean, isn't it'. The hot replied 'no, this is european ocean. indian ocean starts in two kms. away from beach.'

[Mr Fraudia]

ZZ hahahaha good one.

Ummmm I dont think there is an issue in my view because its the Indian sub continent. so asian-indian is okay.

atleast now I dont have to wonder if i should check asian/pacific islander, caucasian etc.

[NYAhmadiX]

The question to ask is: are we worthy?

[2PaK]

Census wants to count everyone

Monday, February 21, 2000

By LARRY LANGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

RENTON -- Besides electing a president, the nation's biggest
task this year may be conducting a census. Trying to count
Puget Sound's Sikh community could be a proving ground for
the effort.

Census officials, trying to make sure they count all of Puget
Sound's estimated 9,000 immigrants from the Punjab region of
India, brought their plea to a Sikh worship service here
yesterday.

"They probably will fill it out,"
22-year-old Harinder Singh said
of other community members
as he socialized with friends at
an after-worship lunch. "(But) it
depends on each individual,
whatever they want."

Getting an accurate count of the
nation's minorities and recent
immigrants has been a
long-standing problem,
stretching back at least 20
years.

The Census Bureau estimates that at least 8 million Americans
of all races were not counted in the 1990 census, based on
after-count surveys of 167,000 households nationwide.

The shortfall was more readily apparent among minorities: An
estimated 4.4 percent of African Americans, 5 percent of
Hispanics, 12 percent of Native Americans and 2.3 percent of
Asians/Pacific Islanders were missed.

To reverse the trend, the Census Bureau has begun a
nationwide campaign, including 30-second TV spots, to
encourage citizens to participate. Yesterday, two Census
Bureau staffers attended the weekly Sikh temple service in
Renton to carry their message.

Most of the attendees listened intently as census partnership
specialist Nikolay Kvasnyuk and recruiter Inder Dewan urged
them to fill out the forms and make sure their neighbors did as
well.

Dewan deployed his command of the Punjabi language, to
drive the message home.

And Greg Gourley, a private Redmond-based immigration
counselor who helped some of the service-goers emigrate and
become U.S. citizens, assured immigrants that census data, by
law, can't be shared with agencies like the Immigration and
Naturalization Service for use in ferreting out illegal arrivals.

Perhaps the biggest weapon in the census arsenal was Gurmit
Singh Aulakh, a leader of Khalistan, a territory that has declared
its independence from India and is seeking to establish an
independent nation.

Worshipers, shoeless and sitting cross-legged in their brightly
decorated sanctuary, heard Aulakh urge them to not only
provide census-takers with information but to make sure they
put "Khalistani" as their nation of origin.

"We are not Indians. . . . We are a separate nation," Aulakh
said. "It is crucial for us -- we all must be counted."

He also repeated census
officials' reminders that the
census figures will provide the
population figures on which
Congressional district
boundaries and social service
spending, among other things,
will be based.

Officials said understated
population numbers will mean
their community, like others
under-counted, will not get its share of the $182 billion in
federal program spending expected to be dispensed based on
this year's population count.

The bureau will begin mailing out the census forms to
individual households March 6 and will begin visiting
households in some remote areas by March 31. The agency
must complete its count by the end of the year.

Established Sikh community members felt confident that
yesterday's message registered among their peers, who are
regarded as among the best-educated and most receptive of
immigrants.

"I don't sense anybody I know is reluctant" to take part in the
census, said Dilbay Singh, a landscape business owner who
emigrated here more than 16 years ago. "Language is part of
the problem. It's not that people are reluctant, only that they
need help."

To provide that, the bureau has recruited temple members to
help others fill out the new census forms, which have expanded
spaces for information about native ancestry, home language
and child care.

[Hum Sa Ho To Samne Aaye]

*sighs* so?

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Beauty Lies In The Eyes Of The BeerHolder