American Indian--to be used among those tribes which have some sort of
formal policy with the US federal government. In addition, the US government
has separate policies for Native Hawaiians and Native Alaskans.
Native American--encompases all tribes in the North, Meso and Southern
American hemisphere.
Indigenous People--all tribes which are indigenous and which share a common
history of colonialism and occupation.
Naturally, there are problems with all of the above definitions. This is
where we've found that a regional perspective is important as well as an
indication of which forum the description is being used. We have been
working at looking at operational definitions as well (ie, BIA definition,
Tribal definition, US Census, etc.). You will all be amazed to see how
inconsistent they are.
Ted Jojola
Native American Studies
University of New Mexico