Census 2010 is headed for miscount of Taiwanese-American - 移民

News source: http://tinyurl.com/yabvvj6

Youtube link: http://tinyurl.com/yh7k2pl
--------------------------------------

Census 2010 is headed for miscount of Taiwanese-Americans

February 11, 3:57PM Taiwan Policy Examiner Michael Richardson

Taiwan’s longstanding unresolved international status keeps the island out
of the United Nations and the World Health Organization and has been
described by the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals as caught in “
political purgatory”. Taiwan’s purgatory extends to the United States
Census Bureau.

Although the Census Bureau is making efforts to avoid an undercount of
Taiwan-Americans, a perfect storm exists to cause a miscount. The Office of
Management and Budget determines the Census race question resulting in an “
apples and oranges” mixture of skin color, language, and nationality.
Persons of Asian heritage are given a list of countries and islands to chose
from except individuals from Taiwan.

Taiwanese-Americans who wish to be counted must check the “Other Asian” box
and then write in Taiwanese. In the 2000 Census, 144,795 persons were counted
as Taiwanese--but only on specialized tabulations of Asian respondents. For
the general population tally Taiwanese respondents were counted as Chinese.

The Taiwanese American Association thinks the 2000 number should have been
closer to a million based on information and data from the community. “We
strongly believe that the Taiwanese [population] was undercounted in the 1990
and 2000 Census.”

Making matters worse are the reported remarks of a Census official last year
that in 2000 a half-million people actually self-identified as Taiwanese. The
Republic of China in-exile cited the higher number on the official Taipei
Economic and Cultural Representative Office website.

“David Choy, the Asian-Pacific Specialist at the U.S. Census Bureau’s
Seattle Regional Office said, that in the 2000 US Census 500,000 people
classified themselves as “Taiwanese” and filled in the blank space on the
census as such.”

Regardless if the 2000 Census saw 144,795 or 500,000 Taiwanese, what is a
person supposed to do with this year’s form?

A check with the Questionnaire Reference Book, the handbook for the Census
call-in centers where official answers are provided, has a “strategic
ambiguity” as confounding to understand as America’s “acknowledgment” of
the “one China” policy. Citizens and Census workers seeking directions on
the correct way for a Taiwanese-American to self-identify will not get an
easy answer to the Census Bureau’s own “Taiwan question”.

“Mark the “Chinese” box if this person indicates their race as “Chinese”
or identifies themselves as Cantonese or Chinese-American. In some census
tabulations, written entries of Taiwanese are included with Chinese while in
others they are shown separately.”

--