Why Do We Still Refer to Ancient Native Americans as 'American Indians'?
@mythociate (21437)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
September 5, 2018 7:07am CST
I'm looking at an ad for an exhibit at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; "The West Begins Here"). The exhibit is ... not 'Native Tribal Artists of America,' but "AMERICAN INDIAN ARTISTS."
I remember the reason why they were originally called 'Indians' (Christopher Columbus et. al. originally thought they had circumnavigated the world and had landed on the Indian subcontinent), but why did that name stick?
http://preformus.blogspot.com/2018/09/indian-americanindian-india-indiana.html
And What would be a good name to use instead of 'Indian'? Not "Native American"; I(a mostly-white cracker) am "native." ... Maybe "Tribal"? I've heard of some third-world people who still live in 'tribes,' but ... the first picture 'tribe' brings to my mind is "the Native-American neighborhood (tee-pees & camp-fires & rain-dances etc)."
3 people like this
3 responses
@marguicha (216405)
• Chile
5 Sep 18
I wonder why is it that WHITE American have to put special names to some of their people. Do you call some of your people "Swedish White American" or "Irish White American"? Yet President Obama was Black when he is as Black as he is White. I think that this is another way of showing racism. We call our Natives Mapuches, Pehuenches etc. Although mostly, we call them Chilean.
3 people like this
@Mike197602 (15487)
• United Kingdom
5 Sep 18
They do actually use a lot of hyphens to describe different origins...irish american and italian american are two that I see the most along with african american.
It's a young country based mostly on immigration so I expect it'll take many more generations before the hyphens disappear.
@cupkitties (7421)
• United States
5 Sep 18
lol Its African American, Irish American ect. Nobody says blabla white American. The use is not exclusive to whites
1 person likes this
@Mike197602 (15487)
• United Kingdom
5 Sep 18
@myklj999 I always wonder if these various groups like being hyphenated or they'd just like to be called american?
Maybe they do it themselves I don't know.
Another thing I often think about is why don't we see english/scottish/welsh americans???...only some groups are hyphenated which seems a bit racist
2 people like this
@cupkitties (7421)
• United States
5 Sep 18
No idea. I always refer to them as NA because that was how they referred to themselves in the chats
1 person likes this
@louievill (28851)
• Philippines
5 Sep 18
Perhaps movies or Hollywood is partly the reason, we watched a Western movie when we were kids and then played Indians and cowboys when we got home and so it stuck.
1 person likes this
