How Authentic An Indian Are You

Welcome to the brave new world of White Indians, Black Indians, Hispanic Indians, and Asian Indians.

More than 220,000 Indian Americans - nearly one in nine - classified themselves as multiracial in the 2000 census.

If these numbers startle you, be prepared to be disoriented even further in the years ahead for this is but the opening chapter in the redefinition of the Indian American identity. Multiracial marriages are exploding within the community, especially among the second generation as well as the so-called "1.5 generation," that is Indians who were born in India, but grew up in America. Because the vast majority of Indians migrated as adults, many already married by the time they came to the United States, almost 91 percent of them married Indians. However, among the U.S. born and those who migrated before the age of 13, fully 30 percent of all Indian marriages are biracial. If current trends hold, a majority of second generation Indian marriages will be biracial by 2020.

We need to prepare for this seismic shift in Indian demographics. It is no easy task, because the group, by definition, is diverse. Most Indian biracial marriages - 70 percent -are with Whites. But they are also growing with other Asians, African Americans and Hispanics. In many instances the non Indian identity of the children of these relationships may even be dominant, although, since census classification is individually defined, all of them elected to also characterize themselves as Indian.

For some time now, we have celebrated in these pages the multiplicity of Indian American identities, arguing that a hot dog-chomping Yankee Indian fan is as authentic an Indian as the pakora- and samosa-munching Bollywood aficionado. As the second generation acquired a distinctly American accent, socially, culturally and linguistically, many skeptics in the first generation found reassurance in the bastion of looks and visual appearance they assumed would forever demarcate their construction of the Indian community and identity. Now biracial Indians have denuded even that last rampart.
Welcome to the brave new world of White Indians, Black Indians, Hispanic Indians, and Asian Indians. After more than five centuries of mistaken labeling by Christopher Columbus, why, there are now even a handful of genuine Native American Indians in our midst. How much more authentic an Indian American can you get?

As the second generation acquired a distinctly American accent, socially, culturally and linguistically, many skeptics in the first generation found reassurance in the bastion of looks and visual appearance they assumed would forever demarcate their construction of the Indian community and identity. Now biracial Indians have denuded even that last rampart.