“Improving Lives of Indigenous People through Better Statistics: Meeting Policy and Program Needs” - Michele Connolly

After years of invisibility, the AIAN people of the US were in the news. [...] In modern times, the decennial census is the best source of information on the AIAN population and the only source on small tribes and communities. [...] The first mention of American Indians as people in regards to the census appears in article 1; section 2 addresses the mandate for a decennial census to determine the number of representatives in Congress. [...] The AIAN alone measure is consistent with estimates from the BIA on the population of federally- recognized tribes and the service population of the Indian Health Service (IHS). [...] In 2010, the number of those who reported their race as AIAN only was 2,932,248 and the ACS reported in the 2016 the number was 2,676,399.