Published in the San Diego Union Tribune , January 29, 2010 As they do to people living elsewhere across the United States, the coming months present to those of us who call San Diego County home a once-in-a-decade opportunity to take an honest look at ourselves. I refer, of course, to the 2010 Census. From the time that Congress first mandated “the enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States” in 1790, Americans have understood that there is nothing more basic to our democracy than the notion that every individual counts. The decennial census gives us a chance to consider whether our democracy really works for all of us. But this will be a difficult year to obtain an accurate count all of the region’s residents. Because San Diego County is home to so many immigrant, refugee and cross-border households, it has been ranked by the U.S. Census Bureau as the 11th “hardest-to-count” county in the United States. Gaps of language and literacy are the most obvious obstacles to
Life & Death, Faith & Doubt, Here & There