American Indians without tribes in the twenty-first century

Abstract

Among American Indians and Alaska Natives, most aspects of ethnicity are tightly associated with the person's tribal origins. Language, history, foods, land and traditions differ among the hundreds of tribes indigenous to the USA. With this in mind, we ask why almost one million American Indians failed to respond to the tribal affiliation part of the Census 2000 race question. We investigate four hypotheses about why one-third of multiracial American Indians and one-sixth of single-race American Indians did not write any response to the tribal affiliation question: (1) survey item non-response that undermines all fill-in-the-blank questions; (2) a non-salient tribal identity; (3) a genealogy-based affiliation; and (4) a mestizo identity, which does not require a tribe. We use multivariate logistic regression models and high-density restricted-use Census 2000 data. We find support for the first two hypotheses and note that predictors differ substantially for single-race versus multiple-race American Indians.

Keywords:

• ethnic identity
• American Indian
• US census
• tribe
• Census Research Data Center

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted in the Minnesota Research Data Center, which receives funding from the National Science Foundation (SES-0851417). We also gratefully acknowledge support from the Minnesota Population Center, which is funded by a center grant from the National Institutes of Health (R24-HD041023).

Notes

1. This is a relatively high non-response rate. The 1990 Census non-response for this item was about 10 per cent (Liebler 2004). In Census 2000, non-response was 9 per cent for the language of non-English speakers, 10 per cent for place of birth, 4 per cent for residence five years ago, 19 per cent for ‘ancestry or ethnic origin’ and 10 per cent for occupation.

2. All case counts in this section represent the unweighted number of cases in the data.

3. If the respondents followed the directions, the householder is listed first on the census form. Therefore, the Census Bureau gives the ‘householder’ title to the first person listed on the form.

4. Householders are not exactly like non-householders who otherwise fit the sample selection criteria. Among men, householders have more education, are more likely to be married, are older and are less likely to speak an American Indian language. Among women, householders are slightly more educated, represent a wider range of marital statuses than non-householders and are older.

5. Legally defined areas are: federal- and state-recognized American Indian reservations; off-reservation trust land areas; tribal subdivisions, which may divide these areas; Alaska Native Regional Corporations; and Hawaiian homelands. We exclude Hawaiian homelands from our measure because we do not expect them to have an effect on American Indian identity that is parallel to the effect of an American Indian area.

6. Statistically defined homelands are state designated (especially Oklahoma), tribally designated and Alaska Native village statistical areas.

7. On the Census 2000 form, 9.3 per cent of ‘Other Asians’ and 32 per cent of ‘Other Pacific Islanders’ did not report a specific group in their fill-in-the-blank area of the race question. Also, 57 per cent of people who marked ‘Other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino’ did not write in a country of origin.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carolyn A. Liebler

CAROLYN A. LIEBLER is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota.

Meghan Zacher

MEGHAN ZACHER is Research Officer at the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer.