Forms will be available in both Spanish and English. As I will explain later, questionnaires will be delivered to each housing unit by census takers and the householders will be asked to respond in the mail. Multiple contacts will be made with each housing unit through alert and reminder postcards that will be sent before and after the questionnaires. Additionally, census questionnaires and other forms will be available to any respondents who did not receive one at their residence. They will be placed at walk-in assistance centers and other convenient places that people frequent.
Householders can also respond by telephone if they choose.
With regard to data collection, the biggest difference between Census 2000 and previous censuses is that for the first time residents of Puerto Rico will be allowed to respond by mail. In previous censuses, the Census Bureau sent census takers to each housing unit to conduct a personal interview. For Census 2000, in March of next year, we will send census takers to each housing unit to update the census address list and to leave a questionnaire. We will ask householders to fill out the questionnaire and mail it back to the census office for their area. We will follow up on every housing unit for which we do not receive a questionnaire to complete the enumeration.