Featured speakers:

Jeffrey Passel, Pew Hispanic Center
Arturo Vargas, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials
Terry Ao, Asian American Justice Center
Terri Ann Lowenthal, Funder Census Initiative

Moderated by: Darren Sandow, Hagedorn Foundation

Note:  Participation is limited to representatives of grantmaking institutions, individual donors and philanthropic advisors.

The second call in this series of briefings focuses this month on the census undercount of immigrant communities.  Experts and advocates talk about the changing demographics of the US population, both existing and new challenges to accurately counting immigrant populations and the work of immigrant led groups on the ground working to ensure a fair and accurate count. 

The data gathered from the 2010 Census will provide a comprehensive snapshot of thousands of local communities across the United States and will be used to determine the yearly distribution of over $400 billion dollars in federal funding.  Additionally, government agencies, the private sector and non-profit groups will assess trends and develop programs based on the Decennial Census numbers, and these same numbers will underlie the reapportionment of political representation, helping determine everything from Congressional and state legislative district boundaries to school board districts and voting precincts. 

As a snapshot, however, the decennial census has historically undercounted marginalized populations, specifically people of color and low-income communities, as well as children, especially those under the age of 10.  And for the 2010 Census, the challenges of achieving a complete and accurate count are particularly daunting -- from an increase in hard to count populations, due to both migration trends as well as current economic conditions, to the current underfunding of 2010 Census preparation at the federal, state and local levels.