In 1995, the Native American preference was about 30% for a relatively new usage. Fifteen year old data is probably insufficient, in light of a high level of public debate on the subject including many renamed sports teams that would have to change only modestly to tip the balance.

The legal term is generally “Indian” and the legal term for a reservation is generally “Indian Country,” but the globalism has made the term “Indian” standing alone ambiguous outside a context like a legal opinion where there is no possible alternative meaning.

The reference above to the 2010 Census comment is also questionable for establishing usage, just as the NAACP’s official name would be misleading.

The context of the question also assumes acceptance of the view of everyone the category as a form of self-identification. Many people would identify themselves of “Navajo” or “Cherokee” or “Sioux,” for example, rather than as part of an outsider created global ethnic group.

Rich Rostrom: It can also refer to Pope Gregory I (the Great), who was credited in legend with inventing the plainchant form of rendering psalms and other liturgical verse.

Pope Gregory was also an early student of probability and statistics. I’m sure you’ve heard people refer to “Gregorian Chance”…. ;-)

BBB

While many use it to refer to Hispanics, or more narrowly to Mexican-Americans, I doubt that it is universal. Many Hispanics I know would be puzzled and a little irritated to be called Chicanos.

Trying to be clever here? There is not and never was a “Gregorian Order”. “Gregorian” refers to Pope Gregory XIII, who established the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, by the bull Inter gravissimas.

It can also refer to Pope Gregory I (the Great), who was credited in legend with inventing the plainchant form of rendering psalms and other liturgical verse.

Dave N.: the term “Black” was not unheard of before then. John Howard Griffin’s book Black Like Me, for example, was printed under that title in 1961

Langston Hughes used it too. But it did not go mainstream and become the politely accepted term until 1968. I remember noticing it as it happened, but did not realize the connection with Dr. King. I do remember Sammy Davis going on TV to plead for calm after Dr. King’s murder; during the plea, he referred to himself as Afro-American, which gained some brief currency in the 1960s and early 1970′s.

Paulie Carbone: This is what passes for clever around here?

Tell me you didn’t at least smile at the answer Microsoft Outlook.

yankee: The only time I ever see “womyn” is by right-wingers mocking its supposed use among feminsts,*

Used to see it a lot more in the early to mid-70′s, when it was used by some of themore extreme feminists.

That’s 1970′s, by the way, not the 5770′s.

bbbeard:
In Texas I’ve heard the terms “real Indians” and “fake Indians” — because, as everyone knows, real Indians come from Oklahoma.BBB

I’m from Texas and have heard the same, but used by Native Americans to distinguish people who are legitimate members of a tribe by descent or enrollment or tradition, from the approximately 50% of the white population that claims to have had a Cherokee grandmother.

Peter Shalen:
Whatever may be said for the term “Native American,” it does not contribute to clarity. I grew up thinking I was a native American, and I find the use of the term for American aborigines a major source of confusion.

This is not very persuasive. Hardly anybody who was born here ever needs to use a term to distinguish themselves from immigrants. Americans who were born here refer to themselves by their ethnicity, or simply as “Americans.” Therefore it is really not all that confusing that people whose ancestors are native to the continent might use the term “Native American” to distinguish themselves from people whose ancestors are later arrivals. Native American is in fact more accurate than “American Indian” and the only people who ever quibble with it are people who think the term Native American is “PC” or otherwise wish to deny minority groups the ability to name themselves as they see fit, for whatever political justifications they might dream up.

When I graduated from UCSB in 1965, there were no black undergraduate students at UCSB; at least I never ran across one, undergraduate or graduate for that matter. When the student council, trying to take a slight corrective action in the 1963-64 school year, proposed using student funds to sponsor a single scholarship for a black student, they were prevented from doing so by University of California lawyers because they were told it was racial discrimination. Thus UCSB, in the name of anti-discriminatory principles, remained lily white, not a single black face among the 5,000 us. I digress (although I would like some of you younger folks to see why affirmative action was needed).

Anyway, I was in I.V. in the summer of 1967, talking to n friend from my college years and one of his black friends. I used the word Negro in the conversation, and my friend showed some displeasure and said “black” was the term preferred by most blacks. His black friend confirmed this. When I returned to Harvard for the 1967-68 school year, nearly all the students were using “black” instead of “negro,” although professors were slower to change their usage.

We ought to be free to call people by the term we ourselves prefer except when that term is displeasing to those to whom it is applied. The exception is common civility.

Steve: I don’t even understand what #2 means.The vast majority of American Jews celebrate the Jewish New Year.Jewish religious holidays, even in this country, are calculated according to the Hebrew calendar.If we’re just talking about day-to-day life, on the other hand, is there anyone at all who thinks most American Jews write the year as “5770” on their checks?

Frankly, most of life is organized around the week, which is the same in the Hebrew calendar as in the US version of the Gregorian (as opposed to the European, which starts weeks on Monday instead of Sunday).

yankee: The point about “American Indians” is a bit more obscure, but I give this particular effort at trolling us multiculturalists a C-.

The United States has always been a meeting ground, a mixture. I find the multiculturalists rather naive. They remind me of people who thought THEY had invented the wheel, or of someone who just realized he had been speaking prose all his life. ¿Me entendés?

I am fluent in Spanish, have worked overseas, and had foreign students for roommates when I was in grad school. I have American Indians in my family tree. The homeowners in my HOA include Blacks and immigrants from all over the world. I relate to them as fellow Americans.

The multiculturalists are full of hooey. I detect a very strong condescending tone to them, as if they are trying to bring enlightenment to the benighted.

Nick

People in the 48 contiguous states who are descended from peoples who inhabited the Americas before the European conquest (but are not Hispanic) are most likely to prefer that their racial group be called __.

I knew you were looking for the answer “Indian”, but I’m not convinced your answer is correct — at least not for the question as you’ve worded it. What percentage of the “white” population has an Indian ancestor? My wife and children do, although my wife is “white” and my children are multiracial only because my mother was Japanese. I would bet a Coke that there are more “white” people with some Indian ancestry in this country than there are people who call themselves either Indian or Native American.

Houston Lawyer: Is anyone offended by the “dots or feathers” question? I could see someone taking offense, but it is always used solely for clarity as far as I know.

In Texas I’ve heard the terms “real Indians” and “fake Indians” — because, as everyone knows, real Indians come from Oklahoma.

BBB

ruuffles:
Nowadays the use of the latter is not so much for PC but for clarity. Is it dots or feathers?

Whatever may be said for the term “Native American,” it does not contribute to clarity. I grew up thinking I was a native American, and I find the use of the term for American aborigines a major source of confusion.

Urso: Shouldn’t the answer to #2 be Jew-lian? ROFL
…
I’ll show myself out.

Stay, please. That was great!

notaclue: Nice point, EV.It’s patronizing to be more sensitive on others’ behalf than they are themselves.

I assume this principle opens up the n-word to all?

The term that feminist multiculturalists have adopted is Chicana/o (ladies before gentlemen).

Better yet, use the phrase las chicanas o los chicanos — which lets you dazzle the monolingual riffraff with your hard-won mastery of the Spanish definite article and its almost satanically complicated inflectional paradigm. And, also, it demonstrates that you know how to say “or” en español.

second history: In comments about the 2010 Census, the National Congress of American Indians never once uses the term “Native Americans.”

Of course, they are an American Indian organization. But which words do Native American organizations use?

L: You already may call Indians “Native Americans” or “American Indians,” whichever you prefer.

You may think it’s funny to say, when asked “what may I call them”, to reply “you may call them whatever you want”, but the joke falls flatter than usual when the question wasn’t even worded in a way which allows this misinterpretation. He asked when he’d be justified in calling them Indians.

Perseus:
The term that feminist multiculturalists have adopted is Chicana/o (ladies before gentlemen).

The cutting edge term is Chican@.

Similar to the official Spanish government spelling Tod@s for Todos/as.

I deal with one Indian tribe that calls itself a nation – but then, I realized that the organization that I deal with is Canadian.

I think that one of the most ridiculous things going on right now in the PC world is Kwanzaa. Christmas has now morphed into a combined Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah celebration. You go to a late December school presentation, and they seem to invariably any more try to combine all three. While some Jews I know question celebrating Hanukkah this way, as a Christian, I have no problems. But pretty much every Black I know is (usually a pretty devout) Christian, and is already celebrating Christmas. Throwing in this made-up holiday presumably just to placate Blacks and to make them feel better about themselves is absurd.

Finally, if you want to see the dynamic that Sammy Finkelman was pointing out, note the “Moynihan Report”, officially titled “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action” by the U.S. Department of Labor written by liberal icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965. We had to read it as freshmen/freshwomyn in 1968, and yet by the end of the year on campus, no one was using the “N” word.

I read a couple of articles some time back about people being sensitive on behalf of Muslims in England. First, “The Three Little Pigs” was no longer taught in elementary school b/c the administration didn’t want to offend Muslims. We don’t eat pigs, but we don’t mind our kids reading about them, the local Muslim leaders said. The second was about schools not offering hot cross buns at Easter anymore, for the same reason. The local Muslim leaders said, but we like them too.