Ya Es Hora. Hagase Contar!

A Spanish phrase – “It’s Time, Make Yourself Count!” – designed to encourage all Hispanics, even illegal immigrants, to participate in the U.S. Census.

A coalition of Latino groups, supported by the Census Bureau, has launched a campaign to establish an accurate count of the 47 million or so Hispanics currently living in the United States, according to Miriam Jordan in The Wall Street Journal.

Hundreds of thousands of Hispanics are migratory workers. Several million are in the country illegally and reluctant to fill out official forms. Language barriers persist, and the foreclosure crisis has left many Hispanic families without a mailing address.

“This is adding up to a perfect storm when it comes to the census on Latinos,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, a nonpartisan group known as Naleo, which is spearheading the campaign.

The outreach is also being led by Spanish-language media, unions and grass-roots groups. Dubbed “Ya Es Hora. Hagase Contar!” (It’s Time, Make Yourself Count!), the effort is designed to encourage all Hispanics, even immigrants in the U.S. illegally, to fill out Census forms.

In a recent article for The Times, Brian Stelter reported on a novel effort to encourage people to participate in the Census:

Perla Beltrán, a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks in New York, has suffered a great deal lately – her husband, a thief, has been murdered and she has been associating with lowlifes. But she thinks she has found a way out: as a recruiter for the United States Census Bureau.

As Telemundo fans will know, Beltrán is in fact a character on the popular Spanish-language telenovela, “Más Sabe el Diablo,” (“The Devil Knows Best”). According to Stelter: “It may be the first plotline on a soap opera blessed by the United States government.”