Contextualizing the Terms: A Representation and the Politics of Naming

To what extent does any colonial language reflect some sense of imposed colonial logic or internalized colonialism on the part of "The People" - a term that tries to reflect the “communities” of Indigenous peoples globally?

• "Settler society" is a term that refers to pioneers, frontiersmen, post pioneers, or colonist permanently settling upon, in a hierarchal manner and for purposes of this class, Indigenous people's lands and their respective First Nations.

• The term “colonist" does connote a stronger hierarchal operationalization of "consuming" original lands and ultimately securing political domain of its usage, however, settler society is used because it explicitly refers to the individual and collective members of the United States of America.

• The term settler society thus provides a more powerful marker of the experience of marginalization tied to the denial of Indigenous sovereignty and autonomy for Indigenous peoples within the United States of America.

• The use of term Indigenous thus defines and refers to “The People”. At the same time, the term is not without its drawbacks. It must be framed in relation to other key terms often associated with Indigenous peoples in the region of the United States.

• The terms "Aborigine," "Alaskan Native," "Indian," "Indigenous," "Native American," "Native Hawaiian," "Original," and even "Indigenous" are potentially problematic because they have resulted from settler societies linguistic conventions, which seek to homogenize social-cultural and political-economic conventions of "The People" based on locality and colonial experience.

• "American" is a term that originally applied to "The People". During the early colonial periods in the United States, writers frequently referred to "The People" as "Americans". The term is purportedly derived from Italian cartographer Amerigo Vespucci's Latin, feminized first name. Upon reading early written works by classical American writers such as Mark Twain or Alex de Tocqueville, people will discover the term "American" actually referred to "The People," and not those with citizenship in the United States. The term "American," when used in this class refers to people who have U.S. citizenship.

• "American Indian" is a term geographically specific to the United

States, has pragmatic utility, is a political-legal category, and by virtue of historical design is colonial terminology that emphasizes a greater degree of colonization.

• The term colonization is derived from the Latin colere, "to till," cultivate, farm (land) and colonization is a process of imperial expansion by means of colonist, colonies, and a host of colonial and empire-expanding activities. As new landscapes emerge throughout the history of the United States, they quickly become colonized; mimicking and reflecting similar characteristics of a settler society.

• "First Nations" is a term that refers to the organizational space defining Indigenous peoples (Indigenous) traditional, and post-Columbus, homelands within the political construct as sovereign Nations. In the settler society of Canada, the term "First Nation" has been common vernacular and part of the lexicon for several decades. Within the United States, however, word frequency of this term is less used.

• "Indian," a term, is additionally problematic and not frequently used unless required for contextual purposes. Origins of the term "Indian" stems from Christopher Columbus referring to the Tiano people as "Indios" in 1492.

• "Native American" and "Native Alaskan" are terms geographically specific to the United States, are used in common vernacular, and are political-legal categories. While Indigenous or Indigenous people (people whose traditional homelands are encompassed by the settler country the United States) utilize these terms, they are problematic in that settler society members have or do co-opt the terms.

• "Nation(s)" is a term used in lieu of reservation(s) and/or "tribe(s) (tribus)." The term reservation is a colonial constructed term that in most contexts refers to federally recognized Indigenous people with a defined landmass held in trust by the United States federal government. This term is problematic and reinforces the notion Indigenous people are less than legal sovereigns.

• "Nation-State" is another term frequently used and applied to the United States and Indigenous peoples' Nations encompassed by the United States. The construction of a nation-state permits additional nations to politically and geographically exist as sovereigns within its boundaries. The notion of a nation is cultural and ethnic; whereas the concept of a state is political and geographical. The term "nation-state" implies both geographies coincide and that historical states exit within colonial states.

• "Indigenous" is an adjective usually coupled with the noun "people". The criteria, however, for what is "Indigenous" can be problematic. "Indigenous," in its adjective form, means from or of the original origins. The term "Indigenous" is used in "global contexts and to emphasize natural, tribal, and traditional characteristics of various peoples" (Alfred 2009, 25), but is also used by individuals and collectives to claim an identity to an "original" setter society. Consequently, interpretations of the word "Indigenous" have numerous political dynamics and layers of meaning. For purposes of this class, Indigenous refers to "The People," organized around their cultural traditions through their traditional languages in relationship to the land and cosmology.

• "Plurinationalism" "acknowledges the real, undeniable diversity of life in nations and among peoples, as historically defined and differentiated economic, political, cultural, spiritual, and linguistic entities. Plurinationalism defends fairness, justice, and both individual and collective freedom. Additionally, Plurinationalities are a model of political organization: the organization of the state, society, forms of government or authority, systems for administering justice, and a system of government that applies justice, liberty, and well-being equally to all, and the dismantling of colonialism, racism, and discrimination" (Macus 2010).

• "Pluriculturalism," another term, differs from multiculturalism in that plurinational nations inherently entail plurinational cultures. Meaning, each autonomous nation that exists within nation-states inherently has its own culture, free of the external pressures of the manifested forms of genocide and colonization. Multiculturalism is a problematic term in liberal democracies because it is a construct that implies sub-cultures, as defined through ethnic groups, are permitted to exist through the cannons of the dominate nation-state with implication being free of assimilation. The construct of multiculturalism also illustrates an intrinsic spatial tension between cultural heterogeneity and homogenization. The subsequent consequence of these spatial tensions through the process of cultural exchange is assimilation (benign cultural genocide).

• When referring to and describing “The People,” context helps define which colonial and settler society terms are used, despite their inherent problematic usages.

• International contexts would, more than likely, see the following used: Indigenous, aborigine, and original.

• US Legal contexts: American Indian, Native American, Native Alaskan, Native Hawaiian, Latin American Indian, Mexican Indian, Indian, and tribe.

• Indigenous peoples will use every aforementioned term.

• Confusing? You’re not alone.

Political and Cultural Contexts • The United States Constitution identifies and recognized

Indigenous peoples as “Nations” (i.e. U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8).

• Indigenous peoples and their respective First Nations can be recognized through federal or state governments.

• Federally recognized Indigenous Nations (566): 1. Treaties (Culturally, Treaties were important).

1. US Constitution “Treaties shall be the supreme law of the land”

2. 370 Ratified Treaties, an equal number signed but not ratified.

2. Congressional Laws

3. Executive Orders

Non-existent Indigenous peoples and their respective First Nations.

• There are three kinds of citizenship:

1) Federal

2) State

3) Indigenous

Only Indigenous people have to prove who they are.

Blood-quantum is rooted in the eugenics movement.

Federal standards for Indigenous people

CDIB

Indigenous citizenship criteria

• 1.1 million Increase in the nation's American Indian and Alaska Native population between the 2000 Census and 2010 Census. The population of this group increased by 26.7 percent during this period compared with the overall population growth of 9.7 percent.

• 723,225 The American Indian and Alaska Native population in California as of the 2010 Census. California was followed by Oklahoma (482,760) and Arizona (353,386).

• 15 Number of states with more than 100,000 American Indian and Alaska Native residents as of the 2010 Census. These states were California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, New York, New Mexico, Washington, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota and Illinois.

• 19.5% The proportion of Alaska's population identified as American Indian and Alaska Native as of the 2010 Census, the highest rate for this race group of any state. Alaska was followed by Oklahoma (12.9 percent), New Mexico (10.7 percent) and South Dakota (10.1 percent).

• 29.0 Median age as of April 1, 2010, in years, for those who are American Indian and Alaska Native, and no other race. This compares with a median age of 37.2 for the population as a whole.

• 28% Percentage of American Indians and Alaska Natives 5 and older who spoke a language other than English at home, compared with 21 percent for the nation as a whole.

• 156,515 The number of American Indian and Alaska Native veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

• Income and Poverty $35,062 The median income of American Indian and Alaska Native households. This compares with $50,046 for the nation as a whole.

• 28.4% The percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives that were in poverty in 2010. For the nation as a whole, the corresponding rate was 15.3 percent.

• 29.2% The percentage of American Indians and Alaska Natives who lacked health insurance coverage. For the nation as a whole, the corresponding percentage was 15.5 percent.

Gaming

• Indigenous casino revenues rose 3 percent in 2011.

• Indigenous Nations generated $27.2 billion in gross gambling revenues in 2011, according to audits of 421 Indigenous casinos by the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC).

• figures also point out that a few dozen casinos near lucrative metropolitan U.S. markets are generating a bulk of the revenues. Seventy-eight of the 421 audited casinos, or 18.6 percent of the facilities,

generated $19.5 billion, or 71.8 percent of the nationwide win, according to NIGC figures.

NIGC figures state 236 casinos, or 56.1 percent of the nation’s tribal casinos, won $2.1 billion, or 7.8 percent of the total revenues.

California’s Indigenous gaming market, which is by far the largest in the United States, reported a 2 percent revenue jump to $6.9 billion from $6.8 billion in 2010.

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