Title: What do Native Americans want to be called by others? - Quora
Headings: What do Native Americans want to be called by others?
What do Native Americans want to be called by others?
Anonymous

Content: Also we sometimes refer
Continue Reading
American Indian is still popular because Native American now carries political overtones, that anyone born in the USA (or "America") sometimes refer to themselves as "Native American" and on the US Census and other polls, which can skew results. Still, among younger generations it's probably more popular BUT the term "Indigenous" was gained political traction, meaning, basically, "We Were Here First", indigenous to the land, as there are indigenous peoples (Natives) to all lands around the world until Invaders, Immigrants and Colonists or Settlers took over their lands. Also we sometimes refer to them as "Aliens" since they now call all new immigrants this term, "Aliens". SKINS is a slang word used by Rez and Urban Indians, some say as in "nigga", now being replaced by NDN, NDN's or N8V, N8V's. Older generations really don't mind "Indian" because it represents our generation and we were raised with all the "indian" imagery, slang and jargon and can better relate our empowering, funny, sad or terrible stories about "being Indian". Indigenous Peoples Day will soon replace Columbus Day, but very political types are saying we need to go further and use Original Peoples or Original Nations Day, as "Indigenous" has been used as another sign or indicator of Dominated Peoples by Civilized Peoples, buried in the treaty talk, especially in current UN treaty human rights jargon, which is crafted by those lawyers trying to maintain the Dominant, Christian, Civilized over the inferior, uncivilized indigenous populations. In the end, individuals prefer Tribal designations which can still be difficult since many names like Mohawk, Iroquois, Seneca, Sioux, Chippewa, Navajo, Apache were given by our neighbors or enemies (as Euro-Americans moved east to west). So sometimes we save time & energy by agreeing to be called something, Close Enough, just as our ancestors did. That story (again as English & whoever moved east to west) goes, Some English asked some Algonquins (Anishinabes) "Why do you let us call you Indians, when you know & we know its not true?" They said, "As long as you don't mistake us for you, we are Not You, then call us whatever."