National

People of multiple races boost Native American population

Thursday, January 26, 2012

More and more people are claiming Native American ancestry on according to the Census Bureau.

The 2000 Census marked the first time that people were able to claim more than once race. Since then, the number of people who identify as mixed-race American Indians and Alaska Natives has increased 39 percent.

According to the 2010 Census, 2.3 million people claimed to be Native American and at least one other race. This boosted the total number of American Indians and Alaska Natives to 5.2 million, or 1.7 percent of the total U.S. population.

"When information comes out and is available for our tribes and tribal communities, we have a lot of issues going back to identity," Mellor Willie, the executive director of the National American Indian Housing Council, said at a Census presentation, the Associated Press reported. "Who is Indian?"

According to the 2010 Census, 2.3 million people claimed American Indian and Alaska Native ancestry alone.

Get the Story:
Census releases data on American Indian population (AP 1/25)
Census: Few among Arizona's tribes claimed to be multiracial (Cronkite News 1/25)
More Alaska Natives claim mixed heritage (The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 1/26)

Census Bureau Report:
The American Indian and Alaska Native Population: 2010 (January 2010)