What do the American Indians or Native Americans prefer to be known as?
489788
If we must be addressed by race(instead of our given names), i prefer to be known as S'Klallam, Chippewa-Cree(turtle mountain)..or indigenous, native (no american)...it depends on the person. My elders call themselves "indian", because that's what they grew up knowing themselves as...but in my years of schooling, it went from "indian" to "american indian" to "native american" to "native" to "indigenous", every one was so scared to get it wrong, that it kept changing,...so as long as people aren't yelling racial slurs my way, it's all good! ;) Check out www.rednationware.com it's tight!
790006
I think it depended on what part of the country you lived in and the amount of contact you had with Native Americans.  From my reading, Indians were considered above animals but worse than slaves in their treatment of the whites.\n\nThere were certainly whites both male and female who thought the Native Americans were treated poorly, but I believe the vast majority were indifferent to their plight.\n\nMakes you wonder what we do today as a society that future people will cringe at our ignorance.\n\nMike Honeycutt
970091
native to what land? india? then yes.\nif you mean native americans, then "indian" was a misnomer. when columbus landed here, he hoped he had landed in india. "indians" would have made sense if he was correct.\nthe name just stuck. like many things in history and language. \n:D
1091361
No American Indians are not myth.  They are of the human species just like you.  They are not extinct.\n\nThis is what the Smithsonian Institue says:\nThe American Indians are physically Mongoloids and thus must have originated in eastern Asia. The differences in appearance of the various New World tribes in recent times are due to (1) the initial variability of their Asian ancestors; (2) adaptations over several millennia to varied New World environments; and (3) different degrees of mixing in post-Columbian times with people of European, African, and Asian origins. Differences from their relatives in northeastern Asia are also due to changes in the latter populations after the separation. \n\nBering Strait, where the Eastern and Western Hemispheres face one another across a narrow strip of water, is the most likely place for migrating groups to have crossed into the New World. There is not sufficient evidence for immigration via other routes before the Norse arrivals in Greenland and Newfoundland about A.D. 1,000, and if indeed any other early voyages occurred, they were insignificant for the origins and composition of New World populations. \n\nJust when the Paleo-Indians--the first inhabitants of the Americas--entered the Americas is still under investigation. The prevailing theory calls for bands of interior hunters passing over the Bering Land Bridge, when sea levels were as much as 300 feet below at the end of the last Ice Age, and preceding through an "ice-free corridor" between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets to reach unglaciated lands to the south. Another theory calls for a coastal movement along the southern edge of the Land Bridge by early sea-adapted peoples. Certainly Paleo-Indians were well established south of the ice sheet by 12,000 years ago. Yet those probably were not the first arrivals. Sites and artifacts claimed to be older than this are gaining acceptance, but anything dated older than about 14,000 years ago, the date when rising sea levels submerged with Bering Land Bridge, separating Asia from the Americas, is still regarded with skepticism. However, some scholars do feel that humans were in North America at least by 20,000-25,000 years ago.\n\nAt no time, however, was the peopling of the New World a mass movement of people. More likely it was a trickle of small groups or bands entering from Asia over thousands of years. Among the last to arrive were the ancestors of the Eskimos who, settling along the Arctic coasts, effectively ended the migrations.
987156
Actually, they are both quite similar.  The indigenous people in North America were living pretty much in peace with their neighbors when the White Man moved in and begin killing them off so they could take over their lands.\n\nThe Indians didn't believe in OWNING the land, but merely using the land and living on the land.  The Europeans, however, came to the New World LOOKING for lands they could confiscate.\n\nThe Palistinians were living on the land when Isreal dropped in on them... back in the BRONZE AGE... but it wasn't until after WW2 when the borders were drawn by England, America and other countries, to provide a homeland for the displaced Jews from war torn Europe and pushed the rightful owners of the lands, the Palistinians, off their ancestral homes and then build jewish settlements on top of them.
773424
You have to go back in time a little. Pre slavery days. Before there were any black people in North America. There were the Native Americans. We called them "red man" They called the invaders "pale face" "white man". But you have to remember. That the black man coined the term themselves. They didn't like being called Negro. So they insisted themselves that they were "black". There's your origin of the black man. The white man didn't give him that name. He did it to himself. \n.
678986
Indians as in from the Indian sub-continent?  Indians as in from the counry India specifically?  Or Indians as in Native Americans?\n\nNative Americans are less that 1% of the total population:\n\n\n"white 81.7%, black 12.9%, Asian 4.2%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.2% (2003 est.) \nnote: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.) "
1169651
It is a tribal tradition in most tribes that they name you.\nJust a few make you earn it, from things you normally do.\nSome chiefs do the naming, or ok the name chosen for you.
1078814
I can't tell if you mean Native American Indians, or people from India or of Indian descent, but I like them both. ;)
1111708
Indian is reffered as people from india, Indians are native americans.\nsingular usually means person from india, plural: natives.
677054
Indiana is a region occupied by Western Indians (Native Americans) and that is how it got its name.
1037123
Politically correct .....Hmmmmm\n\nI agree that they should be called by whatever they call themselves, the settlers took their land (eventually) let us not take their birthright. We are Americans because we live in America. If the earliest settlers called the land Downtown we would be downtowners.. Since we are new in this land, having left our "homeland" ....let me simplify this..\n\nAccepted - this is America, good ole USA (right or wrong)\n\n Say an Englander moves here for permanant living. He legally becomes a citizen. He is not an English American, he is American. A person from Asia moves here and legally becomes a citizen, they are now American, not Asian American. If I was to leave USA and move to another country and become a citizen, say Canada. I would then be Canadian, not American Canadian.\nAnd as such should learn that country's ways, language and way of living. \nIf people did away with this horth thit of attaching another country to their name and live as one in the country that is theirs, all would be better...VOTE FOR ME IN 2008 (Just Kidding)
1120477
Depends on whether you consider the American Indians immigrants.
231984
Before anyone came to america, the native americans had their own tribes, and tribal rulers.\n\nHere's the Wikipedia entry for indigenous populations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_American_indigenous_peoples\n\nHowever if you are doing research, be sure to check several sources of information and don't  rely on just one source for all your information and conclusions.
1093069
indians  thus known as NATIVE AMERICANS!
691979
americans in american idol, indians in indian idol. just a guess
540876
It depends on who you talk to. Everyone will have a different opinion. You can't generalize one opinion for a group of different Native Nations.