Should You Use Native American or American Indian? That Depends on Who You Ask

From Oprah Magazine

According to the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), “there are 574 federally recognized Indian Nations (variously called tribes, nations, bands, pueblos, communities and native villages) in the United States,” in addition to hundreds of sovereign tribal Nations. For thousands of years before the U.S. was founded by European immigrants, the current Nation members' ancestors inhabited what we now call North America. Each Indian Nation's culture is uniquely shaped by its history, original languages, beliefs, and its members' past and current relationship to land they once held—or, in some cases, still hold—claim to.

Similarly, every person of Native American descent is shaped by said history as well as their own experiences, whether or not they live on a reservation or identify as a citizen of a particular tribe. Given the wide cultural diversity across a population that's millions-strong according to U.S. Census data, there is no one single answer to a question like "what do Native Americans call themselves? Is American Indian preferred?"

That said, there are terms that should definitely be avoided. And, as is the case with the Hispanic vs Latino terminology debate (which comes with its own complex socio-geographic history), deferring to how people choose to define themselves is always best.

Below, a high-level look at a complicated topic: The terms American Indian vs Native American vs Indigenous. To learn more, check out these Native American authors for a wealth of perspectives, dip your toe into the world of the #NativeTikTok tag on the popular social app, and see why some celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day every October.

The preference between using Native American or American Indian is personal.

Both terms are generally acceptable, according to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), a Smithsonian institution based in both New York and Washington, D.C. "In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people," a FAQ on the museum site explains.

In its 2019 "Tribal Nations and the United States" report, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) defined Native American as "All Native people of the United States and its trust territories (i.e., American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Chamorros, and American Samoans), as well as persons from Canadian First Nations and Indigenous communities in Mexico and Central and South America who are U.S. residents."

"The term Native American grew out of the political movements of the 1960s and '70s and is commonly used in legislation covering the Indigenous people of the lower 48 states and U.S. territories," Kevin Gover, NMAI director and citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, wrote in a 2017 Washington Post op-ed. "But Native Americans use a range of words to describe themselves, and all are appropriate."

Gover goes on to explain that you'll also see people identify as Native, Indian, or Indigenous in the U.S., while in Canada, First Nations and First Peoples are most commonly used.

“The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name," the NMAI site notes.

That specificity matters to some because it's a way of honoring the culture that pre-dated European colonizers' arrival. "Many Native Americans identify as our tribes in our own languages," Allie Young, citizen of the Navajo Nation and founder of nonprofit Protect the Sacred, tells OprahMag.com. "For example, I prefer Diné, which means "the People" in our language, over Navajo, which is a Spanish name given to us by those who colonized our communities." According to Young, there are movements within tribal communities across the U.S. to restore the original tribal names, and make them the norm.

Some people would rather be identified by their clan.

In addition to tribal affiliation, other things a Native person may consider part of their self-identification include sharing a regional language, or their descent from a specific clan within a larger tribe, which shares its own inherited culture.

"The other way we identify ourselves as Diné people is by our clans and clanship system. We call this K'é, meaning family and kinship," Young says. "Every Diné person's first clan is their mother's clan, which is also their maternal grandmother's clan and so on, passed down matrilineally. My mother's clan is Tótsohníí, which means Big Water, so I am Big Water, born for my father's clan—our second clan—Tó'ahaní, which means Near the Water People."

Young is always interested in learning fellow Diné peoples' clans. "This demonstrates the value of K’é in our communities, because when we know how we’re related to one another, we understand the importance of interconnectedness," she says, "and we maintain solidarity, generosity, culture and balance. When we have a grasp on these concepts, we are better relatives to one another and we act with compassion and love."

The U.S. Census uses the term American Indian.

The U.S. census has been combining "American Indian or Alaska Native" into one identity since 2000, making the precise number of Indigenous people living in the lower 48 states impossible to come by (the Census Bureau believes it undercounted the number living on reservations by 4.9 percent in 2010). In a joint decision by the Bureau and tribal groups it was decided that the 2020 Census would continue to allow people to self-identify their tribal affiliations as a write-in under the race section.

Avoid the term "Indian," if you are non-Indigenous.

Not least because it's confusing: while Merriam Webster still secondarily defines it as shorthand for American Indian, the term Indian is more commonly used to describe the people, food, and customs of India, the South Asian country. While the term "American Indian" has historically been used by both Native-run organizations and the U.S. government, "Indian" evokes a dark history of negative stereotypes.

"We've been called 'Indians' and 'injun' to degrade us to a position of inferiority, and that's what we're reminded of when non-Natives call us Indian," says Young, adding that the term has been reclaimed within Native communities. Some Natives have also come to use the term "Indian Country" to describe the tribal Nations in collective; the NCAI notes that the term "Indian country," lowercase c, also appears in U.S. Code and is a legal term that's been used in Supreme Court opinions.

Again, while Native people can choose to use it at their own discretion, "it's one of those things where we're allowed to refer to ourselves in ways others aren't," Young says. "Because we've suffered immense trauma at the hands of colonizers and are still suffering from intergenerational trauma, reclaiming terms is the way we cope and heal."

Ultimately, if you're unclear on what an Indigenous person prefers to be called, the quickest way to know is to ask them.

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