TROY — La Unidad Latina and Voto Latino will hold a Census form workshop tonight in an effort to increase Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students’ participation in the 2010 population count.
The U.S. Census estimates Rensselaer County’s population to be 155,541, marking a 2.1 increase from the 2000 Census. RPI’s student enrollment is 6,500 and officials want to make sure each student is counted.
RPI deserves its fair share of federal funds allocated to localities for programs like education, housing and transportation, says the school’s chapter of La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity, Inc., which is aimed at addressing the needs of Latino students in higher education.
Voto Latino, an organization aimed at increasing American Latino youth civic participation, has launched an active Be Counted advocacy campaign to make sure Latinos are properly counted in the 2010 Census. According to the nonprofit organization, which was co-founded by actress Rosario Dawson in 2004, Latinos are the nation’s largest minority and yet they’ve been historically undercounted by the census for a variety of reasons. Those reasons include a lack of bilingual information for Spanish speakers, mistaken fears of immigration raids and too few Latino census workers.
The group’s Census campaign has relied heavily on social media and a celebrity-driven national public service announcement campaign to get the word out and make sure Latinos are counted.
Students who attend the forum at RPI today and fill out their Census forms will receive a free iTunes card with 25 songs from popular artists.
At a Glance...
WHO: La Unidad Latina and Voto Latino
WHAT: 2010 Census Form Workshop
WHEN: 7 p.m. today
WHERE: Low Center for Industrial Innovation Building, Room 450, RPI
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