Native American concentrations

[socaldem]

Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, I wonder where the highest concentrations of Native Americans in the U.S. are... and I wonder to what extent Native Americans hold elective office...

I know the Native American vote has been crucial to Democratic successes in the Dakotas, Montana, and, to a lesser extent, MN and WI... but I'd like to know the extent to which Native Americans are represented on the local level...

In AZ, NM, and OK, meanwhile, it seems to me that there are large enough concentrations of Native Americans that one might expect them to have representatives in congress... why don't they?  Why are voting rights districts not specifically tailored to elect Native Americans in OK, for instance?

Are there other places with significant Native American populations?

[Alcon]

There aren't many Native Americans in Hawai'i, actually.  Along with blacks, it's pretty much the only ethnic group that Hawai'i does not have a significant number of.

These states have American Indian populations higher than 2% of the population:

Alaska - 15.6%
New Mexico - 9.5%
South Dakota - 8.3%
Oklahoma - 7.9%
Montana - 6.2%
Arizona - 5.0%
North Dakota - 4.9%
Wyoming - 2.3%

Basically, there are only a few states where Native American populations are high enough to make the difference in anything other than a razor-thin election.  In addition to low percentages in most states, Native Americans are less likely to vote than other populations for self-evident reasons.

Native Americans are generally economically liberal, with a large range of social views.  In general, they are quite Democratic, especially on reservations.  However, in Alaska, some vote in hopes of oil industry activity and thus vote Republican.

As for your question, there simply isn't an area with a significant enough Native American population in Oklahoma to elect a Native American very easily.  There is probably no county in Oklahoma where Native Americans cast more ballots than whites, at least.

[socaldem]

There aren't many Native Americans in Hawai'i, actually.  Along with blacks, it's pretty much the only ethnic group that Hawai'i does not have a significant number of.

These states have American Indian populations higher than 2% of the population:

Alaska - 15.6%
New Mexico - 9.5%
South Dakota - 8.3%
Oklahoma - 7.9%
Montana - 6.2%
Arizona - 5.0%
North Dakota - 4.9%
Wyoming - 2.3%

Basically, there are only a few states where Native American populations are high enough to make the difference in anything other than a razor-thin election.  In addition to low percentages in most states, Native Americans are less likely to vote than other populations for self-evident reasons.

Native Americans are generally economically liberal, with a large range of social views.  In general, they are quite Democratic, especially on reservations.  However, in Alaska, some vote in hopes of oil industry activity and thus vote Republican.

As for your question, there simply isn't an area with a significant enough Native American population in Oklahoma to elect a Native American very easily.  There is probably no county in Oklahoma where Native Americans cast more ballots than whites, at least.

Well, I was kinda including thinking Hawaiian natives as native american...though, of course they're polynesian by ancestory...they're "native" to Hawaii...

As I recall Oklahoma's native American population is traditionally Republican... I wonder if there's still lingering R-party support among the populations there...

Actually, it seems to me that if Rep. Dan Boren's district were split into two and there was a Northern OK district that included bits of Tulsa and a little of Wes Watkin's CD where there are significant native American populations, a CD would be created with a very significant Native American population and a Democratic edge... the cd might kinda look like Carson's old cd used to, though, adding Dem-leaning parts of tulsa.... Meanwhile, the southern bits of Boren's cd could be combined with dem-leaning counties in Tom Cole's cd to recreate the "little Dixie" district for Boren to keep...

In New Mexico, it seems to me an optimal Dem gerrymander would add more of the southeastern counties to Udall's district, so that it becomes less heavily Democratic-leaning, while adding Northwestern areas to the CD in the South to make it a plurality Latino/Native American district...

[minionofmidas]

Well, I was kinda including thinking Hawaiian natives as native american...though, of course they're polynesian by ancestory...they're "native" to Hawaii...

There *are* some Native Hawaiians who concur with that reasoning.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It's probably far more complex than that, but they're certainly no Dem voting bloc. Also notice that intermarriage with Whites has been very pronounced, and lots of people defined as Native American in Oklahoma would be viewed at first glance as White elsewhere. And Congressman Brad Carson, who held that seat before Boren and lost the Senate race to Coburn, was a Native American according to Oklahoma standards.
[/quote]
In New Mexico, it seems to me an optimal Dem gerrymander would add more of the southeastern counties to Udall's district, so that it becomes less heavily Democratic-leaning, while adding Northwestern areas to the CD in the South to make it a plurality Latino/Native American district...

[/quote]Don't forget the difference between North New Mexico Hispanics, who consider themselves Spanish, and vote, and vote heavily Democratic, and South New Mexico Hispanics, who consider themselves Mexicans, and don't vote in nearly as large numbers.
And of course, a NM gerrymander is made harder by the Pueblos. Central NM is a patchwork of White, Hispanic and Native American settlement.

Rick Renzi's district in Arizona could probably be gerrymandered to be considerably more Native American, by including the nonvoting Hopi and the Colorado River tribal areas and drawing some White Republican areas out.

[Cubby]

I don't have a source but I remember reading awhile back that Maria Cantwell's very close win in 2000 for Washington State Senate was due in part to Native American support. That is a state with a notable Indian population.

The reason there are no districts designed specifically for Native Americans has to do simply with sheer numbers. There are 37 million blacks and 35 million hispanics, there are less than 3 million Native Americans spread out over wide areas, making 645,000 person districts almost impossible to make.

Also it should be noted that the intention of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was to specifically address entrenched racism towards blacks, other groups were not as strictly addressed. (Not a complaint, just a fact)

[minionofmidas]

Distribution of Native American population

Yeah, this was sort of a redistricting project really...hey, it's Native American and Alaska Native Heritage Month!
All figures heavily rounded with likely rounding error. All figures single race Native Americans according to 2000 census.
New England - 42K
New York City - 41K
New York state, remainder - 41K
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware - 40K
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky - 49K
Ohio, Indiana - 40K
Illinois - 31K
Michigan - 58K
Wisconsin - 47K
Minnesota - 55K
North Dakota - 31K
South Dakota - 62K
Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas - 49K
Missouri - 25K
Robeson County, North Carolina - 47K
North Carolina, remainder - 53K
South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee - 51K
Florida - 54K
Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas - 52K
Louisiana - 25K
Tulsa county, OK - 29K
14 counties roughly NE to NW of Tulsa - 56K
10 counties roughly E and S of Tulsa - 60K
11 counties centred on OK City, bordering districts mentioned above - 61K (details if anyone asks)
Oklahoma, remainder - 61K
Texas north of and including Loving - Crane - San Saba -Lampasas - Bell - Milam - Robertson - Leon - (blessed if I could read my handwriting, seems to begin in Ho) - Hardin - Jefferson  - 48 K
Texas, remainder - 51 K (both figures way too low due to obscene rounding, 118K together)
McKinley county, NM - 56K
San Juan and Sandoval counties, NM - 57 K
New Mexico, remainder - 60 K
Apache county, AZ - 53 K
Navajo county, AZ - 47K
Maricopa county, AZ - 57K
Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz counties, AZ - 47K
Coconino, Gila, La Paz, Mohave, Yavapai, Yuma - 52K
Colorado - 44K
Utah - 30K
Nevada - 26K
Montana - 56K
Wyoming, Idaho, Hawaii (because it doesn't fit anywhere else) - 33K
Skagit, Whatcom, Snohomish, King, Pierce, Island, San Juan, Kitsap counties, Washington - 46K
Washington, remainder - 47K
Oregon - 45K
Alaska SE of and including SE Fairbanks, Fairbanks North Star, Denali, Matanuska-Susitna, Lake & Peninsula - 49K
Alaska, remainder (incl. Aleutians) - 49K
Los Angeles CCD and those Los Angeles County CCD's situated to the West or SW of it - 35K
Los Angeles county, remainder - 42K
Orange, San Diego, Imperial counties - 47K
Riverside, San Bernardino, Kern, Inyo counties - 50K
Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, San Benito, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa counties - 53K
Central Valley, areas E and NE of Sacramento as far as Sierra Co (inquire for details) - 50K
Sacramento county, Northern California - 51K

Purpose of the exercise, of course, was to get a grip on the spatial distribution of the Native American population of the US, in absolute terms.

[jimrtex]

Tulsa county, OK - 29K
14 counties roughly NE to NW of Tulsa - 56K
10 counties roughly E and S of Tulsa - 60K
11 counties centred on OK City, bordering districts mentioned above - 61K (details if anyone asks)
Oklahoma, remainder - 61K

You could use the OTSA for OK.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Houston.

Who were you counting as Indians?  If you count non-Hispanic who included AIAN as one of their races, except if one is HPI, there are around 143K.  Though perhaps some of the Asian & AIAN are actually Asian Indian (there is a bit of a concentration in Fort Bend County, for example.

Looking at distribution, I was a bit surprised at the spillover from OK, especially in the Panhandle.  If I were dividing, I would include the OK spillover areas and DFW in one; and then the 3 Texas tribes: Ysleta Pueblo, Kickapoo; and Alabama-Coushatta in the other along with Houston, San Antonio, South Texas, with Central Texas going one way or the other.


McKinley county, NM - 56K
San Juan and Sandoval counties, NM - 57 K
New Mexico, remainder - 60 K
Apache county, AZ - 53 K
Navajo county, AZ - 47K
Maricopa county, AZ - 57K
Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz counties, AZ - 47K
Coconino, Gila, La Paz, Mohave, Yavapai, Yuma - 52K
Colorado - 44K
Utah - 30K
Nevada - 26K
Montana - 56K
Wyoming, Idaho, Hawaii (because it doesn't fit anywhere else) - 33K
Skagit, Whatcom, Snohomish, King, Pierce, Island, San Juan, Kitsap counties, Washington - 46K
Washington, remainder - 47K
Oregon - 45K
Alaska SE of and including SE Fairbanks, Fairbanks North Star, Denali, Matanuska-Susitna, Lake & Peninsula - 49K
Alaska, remainder (incl. Aleutians) - 49K
Los Angeles CCD and those Los Angeles County CCD's situated to the West or SW of it - 35K
Los Angeles county, remainder - 42K
Orange, San Diego, Imperial counties - 47K
Riverside, San Bernardino, Kern, Inyo counties - 50K
Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, San Benito, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa counties - 53K
Central Valley, areas E and NE of Sacramento as far as Sierra Co (inquire for details) - 50K
Sacramento county, Northern California - 51K

Purpose of the exercise, of course, was to get a grip on the spatial distribution of the Native American population of the US, in absolute terms.

[/quote]

[minionofmidas]

Tulsa county, OK - 29K
14 counties roughly NE to NW of Tulsa - 56K
10 counties roughly E and S of Tulsa - 60K
11 counties centred on OK City, bordering districts mentioned above - 61K (details if anyone asks)
Oklahoma, remainder - 61K

You could use the OTSA for OK.

Yeah, I might have. I might do it again with those if I have time.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Houston.[/quote]Yeah, I've checked since. Houston's the name.

Who were you counting as Indians?  If you count non-Hispanic who included AIAN as one of their races, except if one is HPI, there are around 143K.  Though perhaps some of the Asian & AIAN are actually Asian Indian (there is a bit of a concentration in Fort Bend County, for example.[/quote]I counted only those who checked only AIAN, no matter whether Hispanic or no. This includes a number of people most people would consider Hispanics, but should get rid of Asian Indian misidentifiers (not necessarily all Hawaiian misidentifiers though), and of the Wannabee Nation. Anyways, it was a readily available figure.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Central Texas meaning the Austin area? I wanted to leave that with San Antonio. That made including all of East Texas with Dallas necessary. (Well - there was an alternative, but that would have put El Paso into the Northern district instead.)
Anyways, the three Texas tribes are quite interesting in their history but also quite minuscule in numbers. The bulk of Texas' Indian population is of Oklahoma overspill decent.

[minionofmidas]

Here's an attempt...
Cherokee; Miami, Quapaw, Ottawa, Peoria, Miam i- Peoria Joint Use, Eastern Shawnee, Modoc, Wyandotte, Seneca-Cayuga; Osage, Pawnee, Kaw, Kaw - Ponca Joint Use, Ponca, Tonkawa, Otoe-Missouria 94K, of which Cherokee alone 76K - 2 seats, a Southern one purely in Cherokee, and a Northern one connecting the NE and NW (divided by semicolon in list) clusters of smaller OTSAs.
Creek, Seminole, Creek-Seminole Joint Use, Sac & Fox 60K, of which Creek alone 51K
Choctaw, Chickasaw 53K (30 and 53 respectively)
Cheyenne - Arapaho, Kiowa - Comanche - Apache - Ft Sill Apache, Caddo - Wichita - Delaware, Kiowa etc - Caddo etc Joint Use, Citizen Potawatomi - Absentee Shawnee, Iowa, Kickapoo, area outside of OTSAs 59K, of which area outside OTSAs alone 27K (mostly in Oklahoma City)

[jimrtex]

Texas north of and including Loving - Crane - San Saba -Lampasas - Bell - Milam - Robertson - Leon - (blessed if I could read my handwriting, seems to begin in Ho) - Hardin - Jefferson  - 48 K
Texas, remainder - 51 K (both figures way too low due to obscene rounding, 118K together)

Who were you counting as Indians?  If you count non-Hispanic who included AIAN as one of their races, except if one is HPI, there are around 143K.  Though perhaps some of the Asian & AIAN are actually Asian Indian (there is a bit of a concentration in Fort Bend County, for example.

I counted only those who checked only AIAN, no matter whether Hispanic or no. This includes a number of people most people would consider Hispanics, but should get rid of Asian Indian misidentifiers (not necessarily all Hawaiian misidentifiers though), and of the Wannabee Nation. Anyways, it was a readily available figure.

Interesting.  I happened to pick the Hispanic or non-Hispanic, and non-Hispanic by race table; reasoning in part that if you were to extend your exercise to other groups, you might have districts for Hispanics, Anglos, Blacks, Asians, Indians (AIAN), Hawaiians (HPI), and others.  For non-Hispanics, persons who indicated multiple races, other than other race would be placed with the smaller group.  That is, persons who indicated they were AIAN and HPI would be treated as Hawaiian.

The non-Hispanic population that indicated a race of AIAN is 144K, of which 75K marked one or more additional races (combinations including Asian and HPI omitted below primarily for space reasons).   So the difference between out figures appears not to be 25K, but about 125K; the 75K non-Hispanic not-AIAN-only that you didn't include, and the 50K Hispanic AIAN-only that you did include.

AIAN alone                  68,859
White; AIAN                 57,684
Black; AIAN                  6,848
White; Black; AIAN           3,516
AIAN; other                  1,346
White; AIAN; other           1,079
Black; AIAN; other             224
White; Black; AIAN; other      123
Total                      139,679

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Central Texas meaning the Austin area? I wanted to leave that with San Antonio. That made including all of East Texas with Dallas necessary. (Well - there was an alternative, but that would have put El Paso into the Northern district instead.)
Anyways, the three Texas tribes are quite interesting in their history but also quite minuscule in numbers. The bulk of Texas' Indian population is of Oklahoma overspill decent.
[/quote]
Central Texas meaning Waco, Temple, Killeen, Georgetown, Austin, San Marcos, New Braunfels, San Antonio, extending extending somewhat to the east and west.   Basically I see the following areas: Area along the Red River and in the Panhandle Oklahoma spillover areas (these counties have over 2% AIAN population (my definition); DFW area; Houston area; the 3 Texas tribes (Ysleta Pueblo - (El Paso); Kickapoo (Maverick); and Alabama-Coushatta (Polk).  The DFW area can be considered an extension of the Oklahoma spillover.  Everything else would be primarily making up the numbers and assigned based on their relationship to Houston or Dallas.

[minionofmidas]

I doubt Ysleta del Sur people are a majority amongst El Paso county Native Americans though... on my definition there are 6000 Native Americans in El Paso.
Btw, I think it might be possible to split the state East-West rather than North-South (again on my figures, I assume on your figures the AIAN populations in South Texas are going to be smaller than on mine). The Houston and DFW areas plus anything east of the interstate connecting them is only somewhat over half the state's Native American population, well within the bounds of what I accepted elsewhere.

[jimrtex]

I doubt Ysleta del Sur people are a majority amongst El Paso county Native Americans though... on my definition there are 6000 Native Americans in El Paso.

3006 non-Hispanic AIAN, of which about 2/3 are AIAN only.   This would indicate 3,437 Hispanic AIAN only, no tribal breakdown.

Of the 5492 AIAN alone (Hispanic and non-Hispanic), 1011 report Pueblo as tribe (Census Bureau may be combining more specific response); 575 Latin American tribes; 2411 specify no tribe.  BTW, El Paso has a large military base (Fort Bliss).

AIAN in Maverick and Polk counties are much more likely to indicate AIAN alone, and to indicate a specific tribe (though most of a tribe that the Census Bureau includes in its breakout tables).

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I did a NA split (for non-Hispanic AIAN alone or in combination)

North of and including: Loving, Ward, Concho, Somervell, Hill, Navarro, Freestone, Shelby:  74K; 69K to South.  For AIAN only: N 36K, S 33K, for White+AIAN: N 30K, S 27K; for Black+AIAN N 3K, S 4K.