Introduction
Data is one of the many tools that the Native American Support Program at UIC uses to conduct outreach and connect with Native and Indigenous students, staff, and faculty on our campus. However, due to the way that data is collected and processed, sometimes people who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native are not included in reports that include this population. There can also be misunderstandings about what American Indian/Alaska Native means. The result of this is that the numbers on the UIC Native population can drastically vary depending on how people have self-identified, how people are categorized within data systems, and who is analyzing the data. With this in mind, we offer a few ways that our UIC colleagues can help support our efforts to improve data practices.
If you are interested in learning more about the structural systems that result in non-collection and non-reporting of Indigenous people's race and ethnicity, you can visit the Urban Indian Health Institute's page on decolonizing data.
Suggested Action Steps
These are actions you can take today as an individual staff member, faculty, or student, as well as an institute, unit, or department on campus, to support the accurate collection of data on American Indian/Alaska Natives here at UIC.
These actions are just the beginning of what steps can be taken. The information provided here is also only a surface-level understanding of what serving American Indian/Alaska Native and Indigenous students in the United States looks like. We strongly encourage you to attend lectures, workshops, and community events that will deepen your understanding of how to best serve this student population.
UIC Definitions
UIC currently defines American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) using the Census definition of AI/AN, which is “individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of North, Central, and South America, who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment.”
This is different from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) definition, which is “someone who has blood degree from and is recognized as such by a federally recognized tribe or village (as an enrolled tribal member) and/or the United States.”
The first difference between these definitions is that the BIA definition is a legal term that expresses the sovereignty that AI/AN tribes have to self-govern themselves. The BIA definition also represents the legal trust and treaty obligations and responsibilities that the U.S. government has to federally recognized tribes.
The second difference between these two definitions is that the BIA definition implies a mutual recognition between the individual and the tribe. Just as in order to say you are a citizen of the United States, the U.S. government claims you by issuing you an ID or passport, in order to say you are a citizen of a tribe, the tribe has to also claim you and provide documentation to that effect. You can find more information about this process here.
While the Census definition includes members of federally recognized tribes in the count, the inclusion of anyone who is Indigenous from the top of Canada to the bottom of South America does not provide a clear picture of who the U.S. government has obligations to support. This definition also does not include Native Hawaiians, who are included in the Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander category but have a distinct relationship with the federal government. Understanding what definition UIC uses and what definition your department or unit uses will help you to understand what the data actually means when you see American Indian/Alaska Native data reported.
It is worth noting that these definitions have their own limitations when attempting to identify individuals who are American Indian/Alaska Native. These definitions do not include individuals who may not meet tribal enrollment requirements, such as those based on blood quantum, but have been raised within tribal communities for their entire lives. These definitions also do not include people who have strong knowledge of their family history but have been disconnected from community and cultural practices for various reasons. Ultimately, these definitions serve as guiding tools to help us make greater strides towards better data collection practices.
Update Race/Ethnicity
Now that you understand the definitions of AI/AN, you can help make sure everyone’s data, regardless of how you identify, is accurately self-reported. If you feel you need to update your personal race/ethnicity, you can follow these steps.
Step 1
1. Go to the System Human Resource Services section of the UI system website (https://www.hr.uillinois.edu/)
Step 2
2. Click on the “My UI Info” tab.
Step 3
3. Click on the “My Profile” link, on the My UI Info webpage.
Step 4
4. On the “My Profile” page, press the green “Access My Profile” button on the right side of the screen.
Step 5
5. Log in to your UI Net ID – in this instance, your UIC account.
Step 6
6. You should see a screen that shows the information associated with your UIC account, such as legal name, address, emergency contacts, and demographic information.
Step 7
7. Scroll down to where it shows race and ethnicity and click “Edit”.
Step 8
8. Check all of the identities that you self-identify with. To specifically change the American Indian or Alaska Native category, scroll down to where it says “Racial Identification”. Check the “American Indian or Alaska Native” box if you identify with the census definition (individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of North, Central, and South America, who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment).
You can also check off more specific categories after checking off the main AI/AN category to help further identify yourself. In particular, if you are a citizen or descendant of a United States-based tribe, check the Alaska Native Tribes and/or North American Indian tribes. There is currently no option to further specify the tribal nation from which you are descended or a citizen of.
If you are Native Hawaiian, you can also specify that within the broader category of Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, once that option has been checked off.
Step 9
9. Click “Submit” to save your changes.
Note
NOTE: UIC will not officially designate you as AI/AN category if you check more than one of the boxes outside the AI/AN category. For example, if you mark you are Hispanic, you will be counted in the data on Hispanic, but not as both AI/AN and Hispanic if you check off both categories. Or, if you mark as Asian and AI/AN you will be reported as Multiracial. BUT you are still able to check off all the categories you identify with, and within raw data, all the categories will be present. This is important because there are increased efforts to disaggregate data so all people who identify with more than one racial/ethnic group are more accurately counted.
Disaggegrate Your Data
Whether you are a student working on a research project, a faculty member doing independent research, or a college reporting on how many students you serve, we encourage you to disaggregate your Native student data so you have a more accurate understanding of who you are serving. As of the 2020 census, 6 out of every 10 people who identify with being American Indian/Alaska Native also identify with another racial or ethnic category. That means that potentially 60% of the people who identify as AI/AN are not being counted as such and instead are being moved into another racial/ethnic category (typically Multi-Racial or Hispanic). Given that Native Americans already make up a very small percentage of the U.S. population, accurate counts are very important.
We encourage you to work with your professors, colleagues, and department data teams and ask them to disaggregate student data so people who identify with multiple racial groups are not treated as a monolith. This is practice that serves not only AI/AN but all people who identify at the intersections of different groups.
Reporting
No matter how many people identify as American Indian/Alaska Native in your data, you should strive to always report this in your work. If no one identifies as AI/AN (alone or in combination with another race or ethnicity) the AI/AN category should still be included in the report, accompanied by a note detailing hypothesized or known reasons for AI/AN absence in the data. You should also describe future action steps that will be taken to include AI/AN people in your data, in collaboration with Indigenous peoples and informed by known best practices for working with this type of data.
When the AI/AN category is excluded, people are systematically made invisible in the data. These exclusions have led to undercounts/underestimations of the true extent to which settings and issues pertaining to health and education affect AI/AN people. In higher education, invisibility in data can make Native students, staff, and faculty feel invisible, eroding their sense of belonging and endangering their success. This is a principle that also applies to AI/AN people who identify with another race or ethnicity, resulting in them being consolidated into “Other” or “Multiracial”; those individuals should be allowed to be seen in the full count of AI/AN within the data.