Will the US Census Change How It Collects Data on Native Americans?

The White House has been collecting proposals on how to reclassify racial data collection for the 2030 census, which could bring positive changes but may also exclude American Indians and Alaskan Natives (Native Americans) from some official data sets.

US Race Data Collection Is Complex

The Brookings Institution released a commentary explaining how the concept of “race” on the US census can be a problem for Native Americans—many of them don’t consider their Indigenous identity or tribal affiliation as a race. Most Americans identify as only one of the three largest racial groups in the United States, which are white, Black, and Asian. However, Native Americans tend to identify as two or more races much more often.

Why is identifying as two or more races a problem? Government agencies and non-governmental researchers often put multiracial individuals into the same “catch-all” category. It ends up grouping Native Americans with other people from significantly different backgrounds.

Hispanic and Latino Ethnicity Cross-Cuts Native American Identity

Further complicating things is the Hispanic or Latino ethnicity that isn’t officially considered a race by the US government but an ethnicity. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino are often separated into their own mutually exclusive category for data purposes. Since the US government considers Indigenous people from North, South, and Central America as American Indian or Alaska Native, it means that people who may identify as Hispanic or Latino also identify as Native American—decreasing data visibility for Native Americans even further.

The results of these misclassifications are the Native American population being ignored entirely in studies and research.

How to Change Data Collection on Native Americans

The Brookings Institution recommends a few tactics to help remedy this problem:

  • Ask about Indigenous identity in a separate census question rather than putting it as an option for race (Canada and Australia both do it this way)
  • The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) encouraging federal agencies to collect more comprehensive data on American Indian and Alaska Native populations
  • The US government empowering tribes to collect and manage data about their own populations and territories

 

For more insights and support on multicultural data collection and how to correctly interpret it, contact the team at Ebony Marketing Systems. We specialize in conducting research that offers fresh perspectives. Call us at (718) 742-0006 or send us a message for more information.

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