Title 13 of the United States Code, which sets out the basic laws under which we conduct a census, specifies that Guam shall be included in the decennial census. ACRs ask for information about every person living in every household. A few days before the ACR arrives, each household will receive an advance letter alerting them to its delivery. Each household will be asked to complete the questionnaire and hold it until a census worker picks it up on or soon after March 31, 2000. If the ACR is not complete when the census worker arrives, then he or she will help complete it by conducting a personal interview.
All individual information collected for the census is confidential.
The first census of the United States was taken in 1790. The first U.S. decennial census in Guam was taken in 1920. Guam became a part of the United States in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War. Between 1898 and 1920 two censuses were conducted by the naval governor. In addition to taking a complete count of the population, the U.S. Census Bureau also collects information about housing, age, marital status, education and economic indicators.