In our opinion: Don't undercount Utah's Hispanics

When Utahns read news stories about minority interest groups working to make sure the Census Bureau doesn't undercount the nation's ethnic population, they no longer should think this applies only to large urban areas in other parts of the country.

Utah's minority population, particularly its Hispanics, has grown considerably in the last 10 years. Counting it right will go a long way toward making sure Utah gets a fourth, or perhaps even a fifth, representative in Congress. It also will direct needed federal resources to the state.

In 2000, Utah missed out on a fourth seat by 857 people. State leaders fought long and hard to reverse that final count, arguing that the 11,176 Utahns serving at the time as religious missionaries outside the state should be included in the total. That turned out to be a losing battle. The next stroke of strategic genius, a constitutionally questionable move to get Congress to expand the House by two members in order to add one seat each to Utah and the District of Columbia, has been mired in politics. An amendment requiring the district to remove its gun-control laws bogged things down. That promises to be only the first in a line of challenges facing that legislation.

The state's best bet is to work to ensure that the 2010 census is fair and accurate. That will mean enlisting the help of Hispanic organizations who can help get the word out to a skeptical population.

Recent census estimates shed light on how many Hispanics inhabit Utah's cities. In West Valley City they make up about 28 percent of the population. Ogden isn't far behind with 27.8 percent, with Midvale (27.3 percent) and South Salt Lake (27.2 percent) a hair's breadth back. These figures are much higher than in 2000. Nationally, an estimated one-fourth of all kindergarten students are Hispanic, and that is fueling projections that ethnic minorities will become the majority in the United States by 2042.

The problem is that many new immigrants to the United States are afraid of government officials. This is true even among some legal immigrants who have bad memories of officials, including census counters, in their old homes. Others who have lived in the country for a long time may also be leery of being counted, for one reason or another. Recent raids in search of illegal immigrants haven't helped.

The Census Bureau is working to counter this by hiring people who themselves are members of the ethnic groups being counted, but a recent report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said the census is behind schedule for 2010 and has no new strategy for counting minorities.

Some Hispanic organizations are at work forming coalitions that include Spanish-language media in an effort to spread the word about how important it is to be counted. Utah should do all it can to support these groups. This time, too much is at stake.