Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Lin-Manuel Miranda are here to teach a lesson...on why their fellow New Yorkers need to participate in the 2020 census.
In a public service announcement from NYC Census 2020, an organizing initiative established by the city's mayor to encourage census participation, the congresswoman and the playwright lead a class to explain why participating in the census matters so much.
The PSA starts with AOC explaining that "the census is a count of everyone in the United States, no matter your immigration status." As she points out later in the video: "Your information is completely confidential. By law, it cannot be shared with anyone."
As she gets going with her lesson, a straggler walks in: It's no big deal, just Tony Award-winning playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda.
When AOC asks who has participated in the census before, Miranda raises his hand. From there, the duo team up to finish the lesson together, running through some of the questions that will appear on the census.
In addition to Miranda, the video also features some real students: Those in the classroom are City University of New York (CUNY) students who are all members of the school's Census Corps, a program that supports the city's census participation campaign.
Because the census determines federal funding for a wide variety of programs — but only comes around once every decade — the PSA hopes to stress the importance of participation. NBC News explains that in 2010 New York City, the response rate was less than 62 percent while the national average for the survey was 76 percent.
To help bolster participation, the ad, which was shot in both English and Spanish, will also be translated into eight other languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, and Tibetan.
According to a press release about the new PSA, these languages are spoken by some of NYC's historically undercounted communities. The 2020 census marks the first time New Yorkers can complete the census online in 13 different languages.
"We know to truly reach New Yorkers, they need to hear from trusted voices that represent their communities," Julie Menin, the director of NYC Census 2020, said in the press release. "Both Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Lin-Manuel are homegrown stars whose voices and activism have inspired action in their communities. With two weeks until New Yorkers begin completing the census, this PSA will help get the word out to communities across New York, especially those in historically undercounted communities."
Topics Social Good Politics
