Minority Rule

Among the 47 jobs I held in college—back when tuition was almost reasonable—was a gig with the US census. As part of the job, I walked around Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhoods, knocking on doors and asking the inhabitants how many people lived there, how many bathrooms were in the house, and other random questions that constituted the worst ice breakers of all time. I wrote their answers on my clipboard, and then moved on to the next nonplussed resident.

My job with the US census lasted for only a couple of months. Some of the other jobs I had in college were cafeteria worker, phlebotomist, press release writer, and test-tube washer. Seriously, those were my gigs.

In any case, my total contribution to the most recent census was filling it out and marking “Latino” in the ethnicity section. But that must have made an impact. 

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