NEWS ALERT

December 29, 1999

For further information, contact J. Paul Wyatt of the Public Information Office on 301-457-3052 (fax: 301-457-3670; e-mail: <pwyatt@census.gov>).

So how do people who don't speak English find out that the Census Bureau will provide forms in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese? And how do these same people go about getting the foreign-language forms?

To begin with, the Census Bureau intends to mount a massive publicity campaign in the same five languages, which will target areas of the country where it knows speakers of the languages reside.

It will use both paid and free advertising in print, radio and television outlets that use the languages. The approved message states: "If you need a questionnaire in (insert language), look for a letter from the Census Bureau in early March. Mark the appropriate box on the reverse side of the letter and return the letter in the postage-paid envelope."

These ads will run in February and March. The ad agencies placing the paid advertising will obtain "free advertising" for the foreign-language questionnaires as part of their negotiations with media outlets. These will consist of public-service announcements, "bonus units (added time or space over and above what was paid for)" and local news coverage, including interviews with census spokespersons and reports based on news releases.

In the free time or space obtained in February and early March in appropriate foreign-language media, the Census Bureau will discuss the availability of foreign-language questionnaires.

Additional promotional materials in foreign languages include flyers, drop-in articles and fact sheets. Fifteen fact sheets will be published in Spanish while nine each will be issued in Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

Finally, a national road tour called "How America Knows What America Needs" will field one vehicle in each of 12 regions, targeting various hard-to-enumerate audiences and reinforcing the advertising messages. Among the road tour exhibits and handouts will be instructions on how to obtain foreign-language assistance guides.

An advance letter (in English) will be mailed to most of the nation's housing units in March. It will inform recipients that questionnaires are available in five other languages and indicate how to obtain them.

In addition, the English-language questionnaires (short and long forms), scheduled for mailing to most of the nation's housing units in mid-March, will list the toll-free numbers for assistance in English and Spanish. The questionnaires in Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese will display the appropriate telephone numbers.

If respondents call a wrong number by mistake, an operator will direct them to the correct number where they can obtain questionnaire assistance in their own language.

Census in Schools, the program that tries to educate foreign-language-speaking parents, through their school-age children, about the importance of census participation, will include take-home letters written in the five languages and additional materials about the census in Spanish and English.

Additional foreign-language drop-in articles, a video on how to fill out a census form (for use in waiting rooms, lobbies and airports) and handbills (to blanket target neighborhoods) also are being prepared.

Language assistance for speakers of these five languages (which, with English, cover more than 98 percent of the population), as well as for those who speak other languages, will be available in Questionnaire Assistance Centers (QACs). Language assistance guides in 37 languages will be available from all QACs, Local Census Offices, Regional Census Centers and the Internet <http://www.census.gov>.

Altogether, the Census Bureau plans to produce assistance guides in 49 languages. These will be distributed where local offices indicate a need for them. Through partnership organizations, the Census Bureau hopes to enlist foreign-language speakers from the communities where the QACs will be located.