“What race…ummm….ethnicity are you?”
“Indian”
“Oh, Cherokee?”
“Huh? No. As in from India, the country.”
A natural confusion that comes with the widespread use of the word “Indians”. Some of us have experienced the opportunity to hand out this little tidbit of information to some less traveled souls in the US. However, educating the most reputed Indian (the country) newspaper somehow is something we would rather not do. [TOI]
The Times of India’s Indians Abroad section continues to dazzle us with their ever evolving definition of Indian-Americans.
Obama nominates American Indian to head Indian Affairs
WASHINGTON: An American Indian who served as the attorney general
of Idaho was nominated to become the head of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs.President Barack Obama on Friday nominated Larry EchoHawk for the post. EchoHawk is a law professor at Brigham Young University and a member of the Pawnee tribe. He ran for Idaho governor in 1994, losing to Republican Phil Batt by fewer than 35,000 votes. At the time, he would have been the nation’s first American Indian governor.
There is indeed a US Bureau of Indian Affairs but they have nothing to do with India.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:
“… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives.”
Obviously someone at Times of India’s Indians Abroad section saw the keywords “American” and “Indian” and jumped at the story. It could happen if you have an automated feed like our “Total Desi News” on our homepage. It could be a honest mistake if this was the first time it happened.
Hardly. Previously, the same section had a story classifying some cannibal members of an indigenous tribe in Brazil as “Indians Abroad”.
Last time we reported it, TOI withdrew the story within a couple of hours leaving us scratching our heads. This time, we have photographic evidence.
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