Census 2020 Pacific Islanders Complete Count Activities

The Pacific Islanders Complete Count Committee (PICCC) of San Mateo County recently hosted the Voices of Oceania Musical Series. The music series brought the Pacific Islander (PI) community together while encouraging them to participate in the 2020 census. Saturday nights in May through the first week of June were popping with soulful island music streaming live on Instagram and Facebook. 

Solo artists, bands and DJs entertained an average of five thousand viewers per event. A moderator along with other PI community members joined in the conversation to talk about why completing the 2020 census was important on a personal level and for the community as a whole. During the Fiji episode on May 9th, singer Kelepi Vuiyale shared that it’s important to be counted in the census so that resources like scholarships would be allocated specifically for the PI community.

PCRC’s Talavou Aumavae, Committee Chair of the PICCC, led the social media comments chat discussion during the live music sessions, posing questions to the audience and encouraging participation in the census. The committee also conducted phone banking to residents in five Bay Area counties on Saturday mornings, calling about one thousand numbers per session to strengthen census participation. Identifying a need for language support for members of the PI community, the committee also provided a virtual Questionnaire Assistance Center. People looking for help filling out and understanding their census forms in Fijian, Samoan or Tongan could make an appointment to talk with a translator.

If you missed the Voices of Oceania Musical Series, you can watch the playback on PICCC’s Facebook page. It’s not too late to fill out your census form, be counted today!