Silences in the Census was inspired the curiosity we all had about the way that local contexts change as a result of the global processes that we have learned about over the course of the semester. We wanted to understand how our own local context – Providence – changed; indeed, these changes manifest themselves in the demographics of the city. The original goal of our project was to study the demographic history of Providence, using aggregate census data and paying particular attention to moments of significant changes in the population. We wanted to explain those changes by relating them global themes of capitalism, imperialism, racism, and the others we have discussed in this class. However, we did not seek to impose these narratives on the story of Providence; rather, we wanted to be true to what we found, whether or not it happened to reflect the larger global trends that we have studied in class.

We used three metrics, or “lenses” through which to understand the changes that have occurred in Providence. Kavya studied race, Danielle studied the foreign born population, and Ho Jun studied occupation. We collected data about each of these topics and looked for inflection points, and planned on conducting secondary research that would explain these moments of change. By grounding ourselves in hard data, we thought that we would be able to write a more democratic – or decolonized, if you will – history of Providence, one that situated these issues in a global context but also being sensitive to the subtle specificities of the local context.

This was a noble, and perhaps too idealistic goal. There was quite some disparity between the original goals of our project and the outcomes that we encountered as we completed the research. We had made certain assumptions about the census and its value as a source of what would have been our decolonized history. We had thought that by looking at the census data first, and not relying on what we can find of secondary literature, we could have an understanding of change over time that was not clouded by any particular narrative. Instead, over the course of our research, we realized that there were many silences within the census itself and that the census took measurements that disregarded many important stories about the way that Providence has changed. The census itself as an institution seemed to perpetuate the problem. Furthermore, where we thought that the secondary literature would help us explain some aspects of the data, we found that it was even more useful in explaining the non-existence of some data, that is, the silences of the census itself. While we were able to piece together, to a certain extent, some understanding about the larger scale demographic changes in Providence, we also needed to address the many ways that the census perpetuated various silences.