“Every community deserves to be seen, heard, and invested in, and there should be no erasure.”

Video (YouTube)

WASHINGTON – Today, in a House Oversight Committee hearing, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) discussed the importance of the U.S. Census Bureau’s work in providing the robust, comprehensive data needed to ensure the federal government serves everyone who calls America home – from policy enactment to resource allocation. Congresswoman Pressley specifically underscored how recent updates to race and ethnicity questions in the Census make federal policies more inclusive, and why these updates must be protected.

A full transcript of her exchange with U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Santos is available below and full video is available here.

Transcript: Pressley Champions Inclusive Census Data to Protect Vulnerable Communities
House Committee on Oversight and Reform
December 5, 2024

REP. PRESSLEY: Director Santos, thank you for being here today.

The work of the Census Bureau is essential to our democracy.

I often remind people that if you are not being counted in the eyes of the federal government, you don’t count. 

But of course this work is far more than simply counting people. 

By providing comprehensive and accurate data, it gives us the tools necessary to ensure the federal government truly serves all communities.

We rely on this data to be responsive to issues experienced by everyone who calls this country home, ranging from policy enactment to resource allocation.

For example, the data from the Census Bureau on religious affiliation was critical to ensure our Jewish and Muslim siblings received support during moments of heightened antisemitism and islamophobia.

Director Santos, you are constantly improving the census survey and data analysis. How have the recent updates to race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation [questions] impacted our understanding of disparities across policy areas like healthcare and housing?

DIRECTOR SANTOS: Well thank you very much for that question. With regard to the revised race and ethnicity standards, they are still in the process of being implemented. 

However, having said that, in the 2020 Census, we were able to capture additional granularity on multiple races and ethnicities. So if the line said “Are you African-American or Black,” you could check Yes and underneath it would say, “what else,” and you could record “Latino” or “Asian” or whatever. And so we have some very rich data on over 300 races and ethnicities and multi-races, multi-ethnicities, multi-race ethnicities, as well as over 1,200 individual tribes. So we have very granular data that can really paint the portrait of who we are as a nation.

REP. PRESSLEY: Before I move on, speaking of granularity, is that true for the AAPI community as well? Because there has long been an effort to have that in more of the disaggregate. 

DIRECTOR SANTOS: Yes it is. And the current regulation for race and ethnicity includes disaggregated. 

REP. PRESSLEY: Okay, wonderful. And again, at a time when diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are under coordinated and unrelenting attacks, including from some in this room, the importance of the Census Bureau’s mission really cannot be overstated enough. 

But it is under threat. And with what was once called Project 2025 is now simply the Trump agenda, extremist conservatives are trying to weaken the Census.

Director Santos, what are the potential harms of not collecting accurate and detailed racial data?

DIRECTOR SANTOS: By not accurately collecting that information, we are then at a loss to be able to help communities in all aspects of policymaking and service, whether it comes to, you know, which routes to have for public transportation, to the types of schooling and what languages would be provided at schools, at health centers. Public health is a huge issue. Public safety would be a huge issue, infrastructure, all aspects of society.

REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you, and so bearing that in mind,how is the Bureau safeguarding against actions or policies that could undermine the diversity and inclusivity of census data?

DIRECTOR SANTOS: Well, we basically are hyper-focused on our mission to collect the most accurate statistical data and provide it to the public and we live our values of scientific integrity and independence and objectivity and transparency.

And by living those values, that is a very powerful mechanism by which we can prevent against any meddling, as we’ve seen in the past.

DIRECTOR SANTOS: Thank you, Director.

Every community deserves to be seen, heard, and invested in, and there should be no erasure.

We have a moral responsibility to ensure that the federal government does not forget the people it serves, and that means ensuring everyone can identify themselves fully and authentically.

And I’ll just take a personal note of privilege to say I continue to be incredibly frustrated at the injustice that we have incarcerated individuals being counted according to where they’re being warehoused instead of being counted according to the communities that they are from—destabilized, and communities that have been divested from and underfunded, which often led them to a pathway to incarceration.

So I just wanted to say that, but again, thank you and I yield back.

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