PRESS STATEMENT: As New Decade Dawns, Census Drive Begins

The ceremony included the christening of another vehicle, bestowed the name “Democracy” and described as a “hi-tech Census van” by Rick Wade, Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff at the Department of Commerce, home of the U.S. Census Bureau. Wade explained in his remarks, “‘Democracy’ is one of the 12 regional Census vehicles that will crisscross the country over the next 100 days to educate people about the importance of filling out and mailing back the 2010 Census form when it arrives in March.”

The christening was coordinated with the main census kick-off from New York’s Rockefeller Center by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, along with 12 other regional events. Wade noted, “vans like ‘Democracy’ will depart from Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Millennium Park in Chicago, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and other historic landmarks all over the country, [each] pursuing a common purpose: Encouraging the most complete Census that this nation has ever known.”

Also on hand to encourage the mission was the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), represented by Eva Millona, who spoke not only as MIRA’s executive director but also “as an immigrant, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and a former lawyer and judge in my native Albania.” Millona called the census “an essential gear” in the mechanism of democracy.  “The more accurate the count — the more fully everyone participates, regardless of citizenship or nation of birth — the better our democracy functions,” she said.