Come March 15, and all the households living in the USA will receive a special packet along with a stamped envelope from the US Census Bureau asking everyone to fill up a questionnaire about the people living in the household.
This is a census exercise that US Bureau has been conducting since 1790 after the American Revolution. The US constitution mandates that the Census be taken every 10 years and the data is used to allocate congressional seats, electoral votes and government funding.
Unlike Bhutan, where census means categorizing the people up to seven categories to determine their citizenship status, the US Census is a complete count of the population whether they are legal or illegal. By law, the Census Bureau cannot share individual census questionnaire responses to anyone including the law enforcement entities.
The Census Day is April 1, 2010. Questionnaires responses should represent people as it exists on that day. It has just 10 questions and includes some of the basic information such as people living in the household, any additional people living on that particular day, whether rented or owned house, telephone number, information on each person living in the household, sex of the individual, age, and race and whether the mentioned person sometimes lives or stays somewhere else. The questionnaire also asks if there is someone who has no permanent place is staying there on 1 April. But one must be careful not to include people in institutions like college residence, armed forces, nursing home detention facility etc, even if they return in the household as they will be counted in their respective institutions.
One of the most important issues that concern all Bhutanese living in the USA is question no. 9 which asks for your race. This question asks for information such as: White, Black, American Indian, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese etc. etc. and other Asian. This is the first time ever that Bhutanese are going to be counted in the US Census. Some of our people are of the opinion that we should mention Bhutanese of Nepali origin. I have had a number of discussions with our people and also raised this issue among Bhutanese. It is our firm conviction that we are Bhutanese and not else. We are in America because we are Bhutanese refugees and not by any other status.
Mentioning race any other than Bhutanese would simply dilute our cause and may undercount our number. So, it is utmost important that we mention ourselves as “BHUTANESE”. We must remember that census numbers are used for a variety of purposes such as planning for hospitals, attracting businesses, drawing federal state and legislative districts, directing funds for services for people in poverty, directing services to children and adults with limited English proficiency, designing facilities for people with disabilities, children or elderly, reapportioning seats in the House of Representatives, drawing school district boundaries etc., which will concern us in the future. Asserting ourselves Bhutanese will only help us to receive facilities as a special new minority group.
I am sure the Bhutanese living in states other than Georgia may have come across the local government or non-profits promoting the need to participate in the Census 2010. We in Atlanta have formed Bhutanese Complete Count Committee and are educating the community through talk program, leaflet and video to participate in this historic exercise.
Remember, this is a one in ten years exercise and we as a stateless people have this great opportunity to be counted in the most powerful nation in the world.
This is indeed a great event for the Bhutanese who have managed to get settled in the US. Take this event as an opportunity and act with wisdom.
The writer here is confused regarding the race and nationality issue.
“Mentioning race any other than Bhutanese would simply dilute our cause and may undercount our number. ”
This statement is not true and people need to be aware that you can be of any race but could be residing in a different region and have different nationality.
Bhutanese refugees comprise of different races and one of the major refugee races is ethnic Nepali. So your race is NEPALI and you are Nationals/citizens of Bhutan.
I think people here are getting it completely wrong in regard to who they are. They are Bhutanese but their race is still Nepali. Similarly refugees from eastern Bhutan are again of different race and they are not ethnic Nepali but all refugees are Bhutanese nationals.
The supression and eviction by the Bhutanese regime all boils down to the fact that ethnic Nepalis were not allowed to wear their own clothes, speak their own language and promote their own culture. Doesn’t this sort of articles actually conflict with the aim here.
The fact is that one can be a national of any country but one can not change their ethnicity (race). So your race is Nepali or Sherchops or whatever your ethnicity is, and it is not Bhutanese!
Please use ‘BHUTANESE’ for ease and uniformity.
Yes, use BHUTANESE !
Thank you Birendar dai for your timely intervention. For sure, we must write ‘Bhutanese’, it is as true as the lives we are living and the air we breathing. Let not this opportunity go wasted, as you say ‘it is a once in ten years event’. We need to set the precedence in the right way.
“Race”, “Ethnicity”, “Ethnic group”, “Ethnology” are similar looking but different concepts. It is true they overlap with each other in most cases, but they are dynamic. None of the terms used here such as – White, Black, American Indian, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and ‘other Asian’ etc exactly fit into the concept of ‘Race’ as it is dealt with in Anthropological Studies. Therefore, we need to escape from the theoretical trap in order to understand how we must respond to the oncoming census exercise.
America is a ‘melting pot’ of cultures and races, but more importantly it is a melting pot of different nationalities and citizens of different countries/continents. The ‘Asian Indian’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Filipino’, ‘Japanese’, ‘Korean’, ‘Vietnamese’ and the ‘other Asian’ etc (whatever is in the form) speak up about the past ‘nationality’ or citizenship of the people indicated. However, they do not need to tell where they originated. This is how America looks at people’s backgrounds. It has elements of race, ethnology and history, all boiled down to suit America’s convenience. Let’s not debate which is what, but understand how things are working and move forward.
What does it mean to have the term ‘BHUTANESE’ encrypted into this formal/official government form? Do we stand a chance? You all can decide that.
Rp Subba.
‘Census’ word itself make our people tremble as this evil adopted by RGOB forced us to leave the country.
Yes there is a harsh division to represent our nationality. Many scholars suggest to mention different identity as per their interest or lineage.
I too agree to use BHUTANESE during the upcoming census event.
Informative and clear writeup.
“APFA Bhutan – Working For Your Right To Information”
Or rather publishing only the information that you like!
It seems APFA doesn’t support freedom of expression and is selective to whose articles and comments they publish. You have lost my support.
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Editors: put your comments in respectable words. don’t defame others. it will be approved for public view.
The word “Nationality” represents politics; every war fought in this planet was because of this word.Now, again the resettling Bhutanese are coining this word. May be they are in the right direction but I can’t see any reson to talk and take sensitively in US cencus. Because resettling Bhutanese are in tough time for surviving rather than political or geographical origin.
We the Bhutanese must believe only in Nation not in nationality otherwise coined word will again put us in problem.
Birendra Dhakal explained only the contents of a packet, why he didn’t explain why and for what reason The word Bhutanese must be used in US census.
It shows that we are very proud to be Bhutanese. Yes ofcourse; but we were very scared of doing political movement when we were organized now imagine what can we contribute to our Nation and its’ people; nothing, only conceptual drama.
We have and will have tough time in US so what can we contribute to our Nation. It’s illusion so let them (Resettlling refugees) decide. Don’t try to instigate as it was in late 1980’s.
kanchophophong is very correct.I really support him and his opinion.
Well written article.
Bhutanese is the best word.
Please print this article and hand over to those who cannot read in US so that they can understand better.
Thank you Apfanews and Biren Dhakal
Parsu
Kanchholophong makes lots of sense here. I can feel too, what he says.
Yet another drama! Race, caste, gender… are always in their vain. There is no need to force people to indentify themselves as Bhutanese. Some may or others may not want to identify themselves as Bhutanese depending on the level of their attachment to Bhutan. America is a free nation and let their free mind decide what is good and what is bad for themselves.
Census in USA, the free nation, cetainly cannot be compared with that of bhutan. With several million people the Government is not worried to add through refugees resettlement while Bhutanese government feels insecure with regard to its very existence when the Lhotshampa’s population reaches little around 25% of the total.
I dont understand the need of your BCCC. It is already there with UN or IOM or the resettling agency.
About your stressing to people to mention BHUTANESE in the census, elders above 30 may do so but for younger ones it is senseless. The complete WAS BHUTANESE REFUGEE only fits them..
Please do not talk about cause. This censue should be taken as a Window for Bhutanese people in America.Do your best to look out of it.We can see the whole world if fram are made wider.This opportunity won’t come back again soon.
The reason we were forced out of Bhutan is we asked for cultural,and language rights of Nepali speaking people. There are sucide cases made against the RGOB on protest of Nepali culture and language rights.
Language,culture and traditons remain always on the same track. There is no as such Bhutanese Dashain,Tihar,Teej,etc. These are all HAMRO NEPALI KO DASHAIN,TIHAR AND TEEJ.
Mr.Dhakal take much in less words,
Very intresting fact. I like it…..
I think what Birendra has mentioned is right to mention what we are and where belong. But in my opinion, we are not only Bhutanese but also Nepalese at the sametime. By not mentioning our identity, it does not give a clear picture of who we are. Whether we like it or not, we are Nepalese by birth and not Bhutanese only. By that I mean, there are people I have come across such as Kurds from Iran and they call themselves Iranian Kurds or Kurds from Iraq as Iraqi Kurds. So why we cannot call Bhutanese Nepalese. By not mentioning Nepalese, we are missing out our identity and that should not happen. Why for instance in America, as you mentioned American Indians as the Indians want to preserve their identity, so it should be the same for us and we should mention Bhutanese Nepalese. Thats my thought and maybe others will have their opinion as well and many will agree with me.
WE are striving to find out what is right for us and our identity.Correction is a possitive change and who ever does that is great.Birendra is right and others are additional support for detail in order to understand and introduce ourselves.
For some more information… NEPALIESE is a citizen of Nepal…NEPALI is our background. So the correct choice would be Bhutanese Nepali for those who are born in Bhutan. Only Nepali for those who were born in Nepal,India and even for those children born in America.