The Census: language and ethnicity

The local paper is running a piece this morning called:

Are you ready for the census? | ¿Está usted listo para el censo?

It starts out, appropriately enough, with a note about language:

You can pick from six languages to fill out your census form next week, and assistance will be available whether your mother tongue is Albanian, Bengali, Chinese, Dutch or any of 55 other languages.

… Almost all Wisconsin residences will receive the English version, although bilingual forms are sent to places with high concentrations of Spanish speakers.

Places where census forms are available "will be stocked with additional census forms in English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Russian and Vietnamese."

While the results of the census, maybe especially with regard to language, will offer real difficulties of interpretation, people interested in patterns of language use are eager to see the results. Others, though, may not welcome the process or the results.

US English actually has a link indicating that they talk about the issue of census forms in Spanish, but it doesn't really address the point very directly. It simply argues, like all of their stuff, that the government should use English and push immigrants to learn it, but it doesn't directly argue, in the sound clip I heard, that we don't need to gather data from those people who don't know English. They will surely exploit whatever results they can to argue for a need to make English the official language of the country. And right now this is, what, national priority number 8,383,094 these days?

The census is no doubt a bigger deal to the American Racists and Bigots Council (ARBC). According to America's finest news source, The Onion, has a piece in its paper edition (still available free in Madison) called this:

Racial slur development not keeping pace with mixed-race births, nation's bigots report

The ARBC's chairman, Tom Branson, says "The world is changing, and we, the hateful and ignorant of America, need to change with it." The article isn't on-line yet, but it will be. Keep an eye out for it.

While we're at it, the print edition also has a little 'weather' thing on page 1. This week's forecast plays on all the snowmageddon and snowpocalypse stuff: "Snowvalanch warning." Could we add some Homeric infixation and have a snowvamalanch?