MAY JUNE 2018 | MOTHER JONES 67reach hard-to-count communities. (More
than 30 private foundations—including the
Oakland, California-based w f Fund, which
sponsored the outreach effort in Fresno—
are attempting to fill the void and have
raised $17 million to support community
groups working on the census.) “They’re
going to have to spend a lot of money to
convince people it’s okay to be counted,”
says Thompson. If the money isn’t there,
“you’re not going to count everyone.”
after the 1990 census failed to count 4
million people—including 4.6 percent of
African Americans, 5 percent of Hispan-
ics, and 12 percent of Native Americans—
the bureau issued a proposal to more ac-
curately tally minority communities. It
would use statistical sampling, which
included detailed demographic data
and survey research, to adjust the final
census count and compensate for the de-
mographic skew. That provoked a furious
response from Republicans, who claimed
sampling would be inaccurate and cost
their party 24 seats in Congress and 410
seats in state legislatures. “At stake is our
gop majority in the House of Representa-
tives as well as partisan control of state
legislatures nationwide,” said Republican
National Committee Chair Jim Nicholson.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich sued the
Census Bureau and took the case to the
Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in his
favor, even though, as Justice John Paul
Stevens wrote in his dissent, “the use of
sampling will make the census more accu-
rate than an admittedly futile attempt to
count every individual by personal inspec-
tion, interview, or written interrogatory.”
Brookings Institution demographer
William Frey projects that in the 2020
census, for the first time, the white share
of the population will fall below 60 per-
cent. Trump, who won the white vote by
20 points in 2016, would stand to gain po-
litically if the census were manipulated to
slow that shift. Undercounting minority
populations would do the greatest harm to
states like California, which has the most
immigrants in the country. A significant
under count in 2020 could cost the state
more than $20 billion over a decade and
potentially one or two congressional seats
and electoral votes. California is planning to
spend $50 million over the next two years
on outreach to hard-to-count populations.
“If we lose a congressional seat or two, our
voice is minimized,” says state Rep. Joaquin
Arambula, a Democrat from the Fresno area.
“Our representation in the Electoral College
is diminished. Our ability to influence who
the next president is has changed. And it’s
not reflective of what our democracy truly
represents: one person, one vote.”
Some former directors of the census
worry Republicans could simply choose
to disregard the 2020 count. There’s prec-
edent for that, too.
Back in 1920, the census reported that
for the first time, half the population lived
in urban areas. Those results would have
shifted 11 House seats to states with most of
these new urban immigrants, who tended
to vote Democratic. The Republican-
controlled Congress recoiled. “It is not best
for America that her councils be dominated
by semicivilized foreign colonies in Boston,
New York, and Chicago,” said Republican
Rep. Edward Little of Kansas.
Congress refused to reapportion its seats
using the 1920 census. Instead, it imposed
drastic new quotas on immigration. It
didn’t adopt a new electoral map until 1929.
There’s no indication Congress will
ignore the results of the 2020 census. But
Prewitt sees parallels between the Repub-
lican Congress of 1920 and the one today.
“You could make a plausible argument
that one party benefits from the current
distribution of seats across the legislative
bodies, and they can’t necessarily improve
on the ratio they now have, so therefore
why reapportion?” he says. “It’s unlikely,
but not implausible.”a day after canvassing the alleys of east
Fresno, Quezada and Sanjuan drove me
30 miles south, past almond, pistachio,
and orange fields. We reached a sprawl-
ing, unoicial trailer park, three miles
square, inhabited by farmworkers and
known as Tijuanitas.
Across the street from a grape field, we
met a woman named Jacinta in front of her
white trailer, next to a huge pile of aban-
doned refrigerators and tires. Her three
children played by a plywood chicken coop
in the backyard while her husband was out
picking lettuce.
Jacinta arrived 11 years ago from Oaxaca,
Mexico, where she’d grown up speaking
Triqui, an indigenous language. She doesn’t
remember receiving a census form in 2010
and said that if anyone from the govern-
ment came to Tijuanitas, she wouldn’t open
the door. When Quezada asked whethershe would fill out the census form if she re-
ceived one, Jacinta responded, “I can’t read.
How can I fill it out if I can’t read or write?”
Her next-door neighbor, a grape picker
named Gilberto, had lived there for 20
years. A cage with two doves hung from
a tree in his front yard; his work tools
dangled from another. He was also from
Oaxaca but spoke Mixtec, another indig-
enous language. When Quezada asked
if he’d ever received the census form,
Gilberto said no. “The census is for US
citizens only,” he said. “If I received the
form, I would return it because I’m not a
US citizen.” Quezada told him the census
counted noncitizens, too. “I didn’t know
that,” Gilberto responded.
Tijuanitas isn’t visible from any major
roads. It’s accessible only by a pothole-
filled dirt road. It lacks safe drinking
water and internet access, according to
Quezada. Many residents have no street
address and receive mail at PO boxes in
nearby San Joaquin. From the perspective
of the Postal Service or internet providers
or utility companies, it’s as if Tijuanitas
doesn’t exist. It appears ever likelier that
the 2020 census will regard Tijuanitas and
other underserved and neglected commu-
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