My Stupidity Made a Difference

Obviously I'm doing census work for the cold hard cash, but I also managed to accomplish something meaningful through sheer stupidity, which has made the whole endeavor worthwhile and even memorable. I'll start by saying that enumerating has revealed to me the depths of the diversity of my neighborhood.

On the very first day we were sent out as trainees with our shiny new binders and pencils, I screwed up. Despite years of living here, I went to an East Clay address when I should have gone to West Clay. I knocked on the door, introduced myself and asked the man to confirm the address; instead he corrected me, explaining that the house number was right but that I was at East Clay Street.

I apologized and went to leave, but he insisted I stay. I explained that someone else would come by to count him, but that he wasn't on my list. Newbie that I was, I was determined to follow the rules. "No, no," he insisted. "I didn't get a census form. I've never gotten a census form. You're here now and what if no one else comes? I want to be counted. Please come in."

Once inside, he explained that he didn't want to rely on someone else showing up since no one ever had. Being a freshly-minted, dewy-eyed enumerator, I felt like the right thing to do was to fill out a form for this man, despite him not being a person I was supposed to count.

When we got to the race portion of the form, it all became clear. He was Native American, of the Holiwahali-Sponia tribe and he said his parents had never been counted, nor had his grandparents. "When I looked up records, there's no trace of my family because they were never counted," he said. "I want my great- grandchildren to be able to find out about me."

Wow, was I glad I'd come in and done the wrong thing. The man was absolutely right; he should be counted. And the irony was that once I had the information, I took it to the person who had his block and indeed, his address was not listed. Apparently because he lives over a business, no one had ever known about the apartment and put it on a census list. If not for my faux pas, he would have remained invisible.

In the weeks since, I have enumerated far more people of Native American descent than I had any idea lived in J-Ward. Happily in the 'hood are Cherokee, Pamunkey, Lakota, Umpqua and even Pomo-Mewak, a Mexican tribe, and all now denoted as such on their census forms. And that's just the people I personally counted.

A future generation will be able to do genealogical research about this man because of me. I'm incredibly proud of the results of my incompetence.