On Judging Others

Actually, crash, I think the objection to "Native American" stems from an objection to anything-hyphenated-American. I've always disliked the concept. You're either American (as in "citizen of the United States"), or you're not.The term American itself is a crappy one, IMO. It rightly irritates Canadians, Nicaraguans, Ecuadorans, etc, who are all as rightfully termed Americans as the damn gringos.A third point is that Native American is almost as bad a collective term as Indian. It lumps together peoples, languages and cultures that are as disparate as Scots and Maoris. Without getting too long-winded on this subject, anyone who doesn't try whenever possible to use the indigenous groups' terms for themselves when talking about them is almost as dismissive of their individual culture as anyone else who dismisses an entire group. It's almost like closet racism (although I know it's not intended that way). And anyone who makes the mistake of lumping Huarani and Shuar in the same boat, for instance, is risking becoming the main course (in the former case) or a poisoned dart pincushion (in the latter).

I've lived extensively in both Central and South America. There appears to be a slight difference in outlook between the two. In Central America, they refer to themselves in the collective as either "centroamericanos" or "americanos". In South America, they refer to themselves as "latinoamericanos" - a grouping which they insist doesn't include other latin americans such as the Central Americans. I guess everybody has their issues on this particular subject. You are 100% correct. Interesting that you should mention the Hopi and Navajo. I'm originally from the southwest, and the bare tolerance between the two groups is noticeable. They have very different cultures, and don't even speak a language from the same language family (Navajo is Athabaskan, Hopi is an Uto-Azteca derivative). I learned early on not to make the mistake of lumping all indigenous groups into one collective pot. The Dineh (literally, "The People") would be extraordinarily insulted to be mistaken for the Hopituh (literally, "The Peaceful Ones"), and vice versa. In this context, "Indian" isn't any better than "Native American", IMO.