The Polish American Congress (PAC) recognizes the importance of the Census, and quite rightly so. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. Census' population count not only has abstract and political implications. The count results can visibly help or harm each one of us.

Apart from the actual enumeration of the people, other goals for the population count, which may sound very vague to the regular resident, are to apportion seats in the House of Representatives among the states, and to redraw state legislative and congressional districts. District boarders, which can be manipulated, can be set in a way that strengthens the political power of its communities or, conversely, minimizes it. Consequently, the population count determines, to a great extent, who will be elected to office and how the population of the given district will be represented.

Equally significant is determining the size of the ethnic groups in the diverse multi-cultural panorama of the country. The bigger the communities the more attention the government pays to them.

The last U.S. Census, in 2000, showed that there are 9 million people of Polish descent living in the United States. According to PAC, these statistics are considerably understated. If the suspicions of our most prominent organization are well-founded, then we have much to fight about in the upcoming Census surveys, not just on the national level, but also in each and every community of which Poles are a part.

Some of the negative consequences of not counting everybody in a given population include: traffic on roads, because new ones won't be built in now more populated areas; crammed classrooms; and insufficient or scarce medical care for the elderly. Based on the results of the Census surveys, decisions are made about building new hospitals and clinics, as well as creating affordable, subsidized housing for people who cannot afford to own their own houses or apartments. In addition, the census data determine the whereabouts of offices, fire or police stations, emergency rooms and other facilities providing assistance to the population in emergency situations. Also, before local authorities issue permits to build new supermarkets, malls, factories and other production facilities, they carefully study the census data.

Because in times of the economic crisis the funds for social benefits, developing infrastructure etc. are greatly limited it is all the more important to make sure that we are not affected by the shortages more than we should – if we show that there is a number of us who have certain needs we ensure our needs will be taken into consideration.

Polish roots