I'm sure over the years my mother has let my father, also English, answer
the questions and not count her or us kids as Native American. In fact,
growing up in Texas in the 1950's, when questions were asked about race on
any forms I remember, the only choices were Negro, Caucasian, and Oriental.
I'm perfectly serious here. Hispanics and Indians in my schools both ended
up putting down Caucasian, because we knew we weren't the other two. There
weren't a lot of us, but we knew who we were and we had to make the best
choices we could, under the circumstances we were given. It's not an
accident that I married another Indian, of the same background, more or
less, as my own. There's no one in our house to give the wrong answer!
The more Native Americans who show up in the Census, the more America has to
take notice of us, IMHO.
Pamela