NATIVE PEOPLE IN POPULATION CENSUSES: United States (2020) AND CANADA (2021)

NATIVE PEOPLE IN POPULATION CENSUSES: United States (2020) AND CANADA (2021)

Since population censuses have been an instrument implemented by governments to know their population and to implement or design public policies, the objective of this text is to discern the differences and similarities in which the governments of Canada and the United States know the native peoples living in their territories. Through an interpretative methodology of content analysis, we analyze the institutional objectives and purposes, the periodicity of each demographic exercise, the margin for ethnic specificities to be expressed in the surveys, the ways of referring to these alterities and the alternative sources of statistical information used. It is concluded that, while the Canadian census advances in the recognition of First Nations, Inuit or Inuk and Métis, the U.S. census reduces the margin for the cultural diversity existing between American Indians and Alaska Natives to be expressed.