Reassuring words for immigrants about the census

Reassuring words for immigrants about the census

By Michael Matza
Inquirer Staff Writer

The last time 38-year-old Chandra Gurung was counted in a national census was in Bhutan in 1991, and it led to the expulsion of more than 105,000 Bhutanese of Nepali descent.
Authorities "wanted to know if your parents and grandparents were born in Bhutan," she recalled. "If they weren't, you were forced to leave."

Gurung said that she had met the parentage requirement but that her husband's family had not. She moved with him and his family to one of seven United Nations-run resettlement camps outside Bhutan, a small kingdom between India and China.

Bhutan characterized the relocation in the 1990s as an overdue correction of a decades-old problem of illegal immigration. Human-rights groups called it ethnic cleansing.

Now, with some apprehension, Gurung faces another count: the 2010 U.S. Census.

As a refugee living legally in South Philadelphia since June, she knows her life is very different today. But the past is not easily forgotten. Filling out the 10-question census form gives her pause.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/90332359.html
[Posted by Ida Micaily]