Regarding the Term "American Indian"

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I'm just curious about why this is the appropriate term, as opposed to "Native American". The latter more accurately describes the ethnicity, in my opinion, while "American Indian" just reinforces how good ol' Chris Columbus thought he discovered a quicker route to India. (Amerigo Vespucci later proved Columbus was wrong.) I believe that "American Indian" should only refer to Indians with American heritage (think African-American or Asian-American) or those who are of American and Indian descent.

Takes me back to my childhood and the old b&w movies about cowboys fighten' injuns.
So many cliches...

The term "American Indian" has become accepted by its use over time. There is nothing wrong with using it.

Also, "Indian".

Just "Indian" makes things even MORE CONFUSING than "American Indian".

How can you say there that there is "nothing wrong" with a term -when folks are forced to say goofy things like "red dot, or feather?" in order to decifer WTF you're talking about when you're using the term?



And as time progresses,and as we enter the new Asian century dominated by China,and India, and as Americans descended from immigrants from the Indian subcontinent become more high profile in American society -the term "Indian" will only get progressively dumber, and more confusing than it already is.

The only justification is that there is no readily available alternative term for "indigenious Americans" (which is the term I would use). A "Native American" would be any American who is not an immigrant (White folks born here like me are 'native american' strictly speaking). So I dont really like THAT term either.

"American Aborigonies" is what the people in question really are.

Anthropology books went through a phase of using the term "Amerind". But then around 1970 went to simply "American" as the term for the original inhabitants of the Americas, but "American" used that way only works as internal anthropology jargon, and not as a general use term.

"Amerind" was also internal anthropology jargon. But I kinda like the term "Amerind", and I would vote for it as the general lay term for the race of people in question. It retains the flavor of the old term "Indian", but its a lot handier than having to say "I mean FEATHER Indians, not INDIA Indians-ya know- not Indians from Bombay" that you have to say now.

"Native American" is the more appropriate term.

"Indian" originated through the fact that Columbus thought he found a new trade route to the Indian Subcontinent.

It's like saying Native Americans are Chinese because somebody thought they landed in China and met the aborigines living in that place mistakenly thought of as being part of China.

American Indian is generally preferred by the indigenous Americans themselves, unless referring to a specific tribe is relevant. Some quite like the fact that rather than "African American" or "Asian American" or "Italian American", "American Indian" puts the "America" first.

Hawaiian and Alaskan natives generally prefer those terms though.

I definitely see the potential confusion with Indian Americans, but I think it is important that indigenous peoples get to choose how they identify.

If somebody prefers American Indian, I'll respect that preference. If somebody prefers Native American, I'll respect that, too.

I'm just speaking of historical facts.

Imagine calling an Australian Aborigine a Thai, because Australia was thought to be Thailand by an explorer?

I usually go with indigenous as it seems to be accurate and inoffensive.

How do you feel about "First Nations?"

That's s good one too.

"First Nations" is what the Canadian government calls indigenous people.

The term doesn't exist in US English, for some reason.

Don't you mean Siamese? lol

I don't know about America, but I'm Canadian Métis and part Cree.
Up here, it's usually native peoples of Canada (only used on official documents), Aboriginal, First Nations, or Inuit, depending on what region you are in. I personally don't care, unless they say Indian.
At least in Canada, it's considered extremely disrespectful to say Indian unless the person is from India. You can actually get expelled from school, and charged with a hate crime if it's a repeat offense.

Just about every Indian I've ever known identified themselves as an Indian if they ethnically identified themselves at all.

Most I've come in contact with seem to prefer the term Indian over Native American and I imagine most prefer to be identified by their specific tribe or nation over that even. The way I heard it described once was that Indian is what is on the treaties so that is what they want to be called, anything else is seen as potentially wiggle room and way to potentially deprive them of these treaties.

There are a couple million of people in this country that identify of Indian/Native American and hundreds of recognized tribes so there is going to be a lot of diversity of opinion on this issue and I think you really have to be cognizant of your local tribes preferences or just even individually to really now. I live out here in Arizona where we have these huge huge reservations so its a bit easier to call people by their tribe. If somebody is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation which is larger in land area than the state of Rhode Island then we call them Tohono O'odham or T.O. for short, I think that is more respectful than forcing the in vogue politically correct term that came out of the 60s/70s that most don't identify as. These tribes believe it or not have a lot of internal politics and disagreements amongst their own and other tribes and there is no one correct answer to this, if you don't know it is best to ask.