TCNJ

29 WINTER 2021 remembered that poorly maintained, half-mile-long gravel driveway and parked facing the road. As I got out, I turned and saw these large, unfriendly looking dogs coming at me. I was able to get back in my car and hightail it out of there just as they were getting to my bumper. They followed me for probably 50 yards. I never saw the owners. They must have figured, Well, this is the way to get rid of the census people for good. In my field notes, I indicated that dogs came after me and immediately apprised my supervisor, which made that address off limits to all enumerators. I would see on a daily basis where others had dangerous encounters. I also got thrown off the most magnificent horse farm in Hunterdon County. The owner said, "I don't have time for this [expletive expletive]," hopped in her Mercedes, and drove off. I knocked on the doors of Hunterdon horse farms like that one with views that stretched for miles and miles. Yet within a five-mile radius, I also saw some of the most horrid rental units you can imagine. My most significant takeaway was the income disparity I saw firsthand in the 15th wealthiest county in the United States, underscoring that the disparity in incomes is greater than it's ever been in our history. Alleviating problems like this is one of the purposes of the census. It helps with the apportionment of community aid programs, healthcare resources based on demographics like age and gender, state-sponsored pre-K and Head Start education programs, and aid to rural New Jersey counties. "Sir, great people come from there, including my wife. She was raised 10 blocks away from you." He was just thrilled that I knew where the Bronx was. I always tried to establish rapport because then people would be more willing to be interviewed. They felt a sense of duty: "I didn't answer this. I've got to do it." My best experience happened when I was interviewing two Latina mothers with limited command of the English language, but who had daughters who were bilingual — a 10 year old and an 11 year old who went to the same Flemington school district my own kids did. I said to the 10 year old, "Could you ask your mother if I have permission for you to be my translator?" I could take a translator over the age of 15 without having to ask permission, but I had to make sure that the parent had agreed for anybody younger than that. It was just fascinating to watch my words go from the girl to her mom and answers come back from the daughter, whose newborn brother lay in their mother's arms. The mothers were just beaming that their daughters were able to do this. These two interviews were probably the longest I did — a normal 10-minute interview asking for the name, age, gender, ethnic origin, and race of each person at this residence became 20 minutes because of the translation. The questions started drawing a crowd of family members onto their apartment stoops, possibly because I was a curiosity. It probably would have been better to have bilingual enumerators here, which could have been planned for during the April to late-July pandemic lag time. But in other encounters in Latino neighborhoods, my census bag could as well have said ICE. I don't think the census did enough to assuage those fears and establish some trust to change how people perceived us. Yes, they did wonderful PSAs and " Our cars were positioned toward the road … That way if you needed to leave quickly, you could just drive away." I worked about 40 days and drove more than 2,000 miles — that's 75% of the miles I had put on my car since March. The last couple of weeks, I was getting outreach from the census every day saying they needed enumerators to go to other states. I got an invitation to join a team traveling to Louisiana the day Hurricane Laura hit. But I didn't leave New Jersey. Census trainers taught us to make sure our cars were positioned toward the road before getting out, especially in rural areas with long driveways. That way if you needed to leave quickly, you could just drive away. One Sunday afternoon, I returned to a house that another enumerator and I had been to the week before, but neither of us got a response. I

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