In June 1976, Paisano was appointed to a newly created position in the Racial Statistics Branch of the US Census Bureau. She was the first Native American to become a full-time employee of the Bureau, and her role was to address the inadequacies of Census data on First Nations people. In her first year in Seattle, Paisano was suddenly unable to walk one morning – she had developed severe rheumatoid arthritis, and spent much of that year in hospital. Tribes and villages were consulted on the accuracy of maps in 1989, and they received the Census data for their communities afterwards. In an interview late in her time at the Census Bureau, Paisano said, “In the end, I’d like to live back on the reservation – like coming full circle.