{"id":33497,"date":"2016-09-29T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T07:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/natives-respond-to-questions-on-2020-census\/"},"modified":"2016-09-29T00:00:52","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T07:00:52","slug":"natives-respond-to-questions-on-2020-census","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/natives-respond-to-questions-on-2020-census\/","title":{"rendered":"Natives respond to questions on 2020 census"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE<\/strong> \u2014 Federal officials are considering changes to the 2020 census that would result in Alaska Natives being asked about their tribal affiliation and shareholder status with regional and village corporations.<\/p>\n

The proposal was met with concern by many Alaska Native representatives at a Tuesday meeting with officials from the U.S. Census Bureau, KTUU-TV reported. The officials came to Anchorage to hear feedback on questions they plan to ask on the next census.<\/p>\n

Nancy Potok, the bureau\u2019s deputy director and chief operating officer, said the bureau is hoping to gather more information from Alaska Native respondents in order to have better data for things such as accessing and allocating funds.<\/p>\n

But some people at the meeting were concerned that Alaska Natives would avoid the additional questions and that tribe populations would be undercounted, which could affect government funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about millions of dollars that could be lost,\u201d said Carol Gore, president and chief executive of Cook Inlet Housing Authority.<\/p>\n

Gore also said it would be difficult for the data collection effort to get accurate information because Alaska Natives identify themselves in complex ways. Some identify with their clan and others by the village where they or their relatives came from, she said.<\/p>\n

Other concerns expressed at the meeting included questions about why non-Natives are not asked for detailed information about their ethnic ancestry. One woman, Jana Turvey, said she did not like that the federal government would be collecting data on tribal enrollment from individual citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis feels paternalistic,\u201d Turvey said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need you telling us who our members are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicholas Jones, the Census Bureau\u2019s director of race and ethic research and outreach, said respondents wouldn\u2019t be required to answer the additional questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not telling you to do this. We\u2019re asking,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s about self-identifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potok said some tribes and federal agencies had asked the Census Bureau to include questions about tribal enrollment before the 2010 census, but there wasn\u2019t enough time to have them developed. Since the bureau began drafting questions and gathering input from the public, Potok said, census officials have been receiving more pushback to the plan from tribal communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially there were a lot that wanted it. But now it\u2019s more negative than positive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Potok said plans for the 2020 census haven\u2019t yet been finalized and that Congress will ultimately have the final say in what appears on the census.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see this as a starting point, not an end point,\u201d Potok said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014 Federal officials are considering changes to the 2020 census that would result in Alaska Natives being asked about their tribal affiliation and shareholder status with regional and village corporations. The proposal was met with concern by many Alaska Native representatives at a Tuesday meeting with officials from the U.S. Census Bureau, KTUU-TV reported. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33497"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}