Talk:American Indian

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The term Native American is actually accurate only for those who originated in America, such the native tribes of the Americas. The term Native American refers to those living in the United States and Canada. Those of Central and South America usually refer to themselves by tribe.


The proper phrase to use in describing the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America is "American Indian" (as most indigenous peoples prefer this).

[edit] Merge proposal

  • Oppose. They are both disambiguation pages, and they are both necessary.--Rockero 20:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
    • What is the difference between them? They both seem to be disambiguating the same things. Native Americans is the more informative page, and acceptable term, so I think it should be the default page. Image:Tycon.jpgCoyoty 20:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
For the most part they do, but American Indian makes it clear that the term is almost never used to refer to (subcontinental) Indian Americans. Also, while "Native American" may be "the acceptable term" in official circles, many indigenous Americans continue to prefer "Indian" and "American Indian", not least among them Dennis Banks. If we can make this clear on American Indian, it will be worth keeping. Otherwise, we'll have to put a note at the top of Native American that says "American Indian redirects here. For [[United States|American]] people of [[India]]n ancestry, see [[Indian American]]". Which I suppose wouldn't be so bad. Let's see what the others think, shall we?--Rockero 05:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

these two articles can be merged but they should be merged under the title of native american as the term american indian is a legacy to the ignorance of the people who discovered them.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.79.185.118 (talk • contribs).

  • Oppose per Rockero: American Indian should stand alone as a page; placing a comment about Indian Americans at the top of the Native American page would be awkward. —C.Fred (talk) 21:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't know what a "Native American" is, so I consider that it is a worse term than the traditional descriptive, which is ""American Indian." You cannot re-invent the wheel. Superslum 08:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Kilocycle has been changed to Kilohertz, and Millibar was changed to Hectopascal, so there is probably no way to stop the creation of "Native Americans." I had no objections to saying "kilocycle" (kc), "millibar" (mb), and "Indian." Other people wanted changes, however. Sayonara. Superslum 12:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course the two articles should become one entry. They are attempting to discuss the same topic (and quite poorly I might add). Do not let your debate over the ideal term (Native American or American Indian or other) confuse the issue of content. This argument over terminology remains a debate in the highest echelons of academia and we will not make the definitive decision here so for the moment let us put the debate over terminology aside. Instead observe that the two articles are intended to cover the same content (indigenous peoples of America--or whatever you may call it) and so they should be merged into one entry. Let the battle over the term and entry title be a separate issue (and possibly a point of discussion within the article) once we have agreed to unite the entries.--M.G., 03 Aug 06

Neither is attempting to discuss any topic. They're disambiguation pages.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 03:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Since this has gained little support over a couple months, I ma removing the merge tags. Rmhermen 17:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hard to Find

Finding info on American Indian Ceramics is so hard. 69.142.35.181 20:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)