Native Americans in the United States different from Pacific Islander Americans
Terminology differences
The most common of the modern terms to refer to Indigenous peoples of the United States are Indians, American Indians, and Native Americans. Up to the early to mid 18th century, the term Americans was not applied to people of European heritage in North America. Instead it was equivalent to the term Indians. As people of European heritage began using the term Americans to refer instead to themselves, the word Indians became historically the most often employed term.The term Indians, long laden with racist stereotypes, began to be widely replaced in the 1960s with the term Native Americans, which recognized the Indigeneity of the people who first made the Americas home. But as the term Native Americans became popular, the American Indian Movement saw pejorative connotations in the term native and reappropriated the term Indian, seeing it as witness to the history of violence against the many nations that lived in the Americas before European arrival.The term Native American was introduced in the United States in preference to the older term Indian to distinguish the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the people of India.
The term Amerindian, a portmanteau of "American Indian", was coined in 1902 by the American Anthropological Association. However, it has been controversial since its creation. It was immediately rejected by some leading members of the Association, and, while adopted by many, it was never universally accepted. While never popular in Indigenous communities themselves, it remains a preferred term among some anthropologists, notably in some parts of Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean.During World War II, draft boards typically classified American Indians from Virginia as Negroes.In 1995, a plurality of Indigenous Americans, however, preferred the term American Indian and many tribes include the word Indian in their formal title.
Criticism of the neologism Native American comes from diverse sources. Russell Means, an Oglala Lakota activist, opposed the term Native American because he believed it was imposed by the government without the consent of Native people.A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred American Indian to Native American. Most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American. That term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 on the Mall in Washington, DC.
Other commonly used terms are First Americans, First Nations, and Native Peoples.