Empowering Pacific Islander Communities logo for census on Facebook

When John Ena’s mother discovered via Facebook the video he did urging Samoan residents of the United States to participate in the 2020 U.S. census, he knew it was going viral.

He also realized that online methods of communicating the importance of the census were going to be a vital part of reaching Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations — even before the novel coronavirus pandemic led to stay-at-home orders for millions of Americans.

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Kiley Russell writes primarily for Local News Matters on issues related to equity and the environment. A Bay Area native, he has lived most of his life in Oakland. He studied journalism at San Francisco State University, worked for the Associated Press and the former Contra Costa Times, among other outlets. He has covered everything from state legislatures, local governments, federal and state courts, crime, growth and development, political campaigns of various stripes, wildfires and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.