NALEO Educational Fund is a preeminent national leader in advocacy to ensure that the Census provides the most accurate portrayal possible of the Latino community and the entire population. We promote the compilation of full and accurate data on Latinos, including their ethnic, racial and national origin identification.
NALEO Educational Fund also educates policymakers about the need for sound and cost-effective planning for Census 2020. In addition, we work to strengthen the American Community Survey, which is the source of updated information on a wide range of population and housing characteristics. NALEO Educational Fund also advocates for policies to address the persistent problem of the under-representation of Latinos at all of the levels of the Census Bureau’s workforce, particularly in its senior and management leadership positions.
Our nation’s future prosperity is shaped in part by the accuracy of the data collected by the Census Bureau on the nation’s population, and on its racial, ethnic and national origin groups. These data help ensure fair and representative reapportionment and redistricting. They guide a wide range of decisions made in the public and private sectors that affect the lives of all Americans. Census data plays an indispensable role in the monitoring and implementation of civil rights policies, and they are used to ensure the effective allocation of billions of dollars in federal, state and local funding.
The Latino community is now 58.8 million strong, and one of every six American residents is Latino. Latinos are the nation’s second largest population group, and accurate data about the Latino community are critical for our country’s economic, social and civic well-being.
NALEO Educational Fund’s Executive Director, Arturo Vargas, is a member of the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations, where he works with top Census officials on a broad range of policy issues. In addition, NALEO Educational Fund currently serves as a co-chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Census Task Force, where we lead advocacy efforts to surmount the obstacles to effective data collection about the hardest-to-reach groups of U.S. residents.
Other Issues
