Talk:List of Native Americans in the United States Congress

Delegates
Does anyone have more information on non-voting delegates? Therequiembellishere (talk) 06:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Other indigenous peoples
How might other indigenous peoples, such as Native Hawaiians, be mentioned? Should they get a separate page or a subsection of this page perhaps? Therequiembellishere (talk) 06:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I just came to this page and had a similar question. I have beefed up the Intro to clarify the issue.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:04, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Jeanne Shaheen
She's reportedly a direct descendant of Pocahontas, so should she be included here? MB298 (talk) 04:00, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Being a descendant of John Rolfe and Pocahontas (who died 400 years ago) is extremely common in America (particularly among descendants of old Virginia families), and does not make one a Native American. Shaheen is a 12th-generation descendant of Pocahontas (see https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/people/family-tree-shows-senator-jeanne-shaheen-direct-descendant-pocahontas/), which, unless she has other Native American ancestry, makes her only 0.02% Native American.  It's an interesting question whether someone with a single Native American great-grandparent should be considered a Native American, and I guess that it would depend partly on the rules set by individual Indian Tribes, but that would be someone with 12.50% Native American ancestry, not 0.02% Native American ancestry.  If having one Native American out of one's 4,096 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents is deemed sufficient to get one included on a list of Native American members of Congress, then we're going to have to add probably over half of the members of Congress to the article. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 13:03, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Whether Quantum of Blood (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_quantum_laws), tribal membership, or cultural identity should be used as a criterion for inclusion or exclusion from this reference work is definitely an issue of editorial bias. It appears that, although they maintained cordial relations with the Powahatans, none of the descendants of Pocahontas ever lived as a member of that tribe. Sfcameron (talk) 19:38, 22 August 2020 (UTC)SFCameron

Daniel Akaka
Wikipedia states that Daniel Akaka "was the first U.S. Senator of Native Hawaiian ancestry." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Akaka He is not included in this article. Should he be?

EinkomischerKauz (talk) 22:27, 6 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The Hawaiian Islands are located in Polynesia, not in North America, and Native Hawaiians are considered Pacific Islanders, not Native Americans. Daniel Akaka is included in the article List of Asian Americans and Pacific Islands Americans in the United States Congress, as are the other Native Hawaiians who have served in the U.S. Congress (as Delegates to the U.S. House of Representatives, prior to Hawaii's admission as the 50th State of the Union). AuH2ORepublican (talk) 00:58, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I just came to this page and had a similar question. I have beefed up the Intro to clarify the issue.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:05, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Before seeing this post, I had read your explanatory edit to the main article and had thanked you for it. Thanks again for clarifying why Native Hawaiians are classified as Pacific Islanders, not as Native Americans. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 20:51, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Congressman John E. Miles
@User:Reywas92 and @User:Yohan Anthony Sunanda, page 9 of the September 2014 edition of the New Mexico Military Institute Alumni Relations magazine provides the following information on a distinguished alumnus of NMMI:

"MG Franklin E. Miles, USA (Ret) 1944 JC was born in 1923 in Tucumcari, New Mexico. His father was Governor John E. Miles of Cherokee descent. His mother, Susie C. Wade, was a member of the Choctaw Nation. In 1939, he attended the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, NM and received an Associate Degree upon graduation. Returning from World War II, Miles attended The University of New Mexico (UNM) and received his degree in Business Administration in 1950."



This seems to me to be a reliable source, and to be more trustworthy regarding John E. Miles's ancestry than one can expect from an article about a 2018 gubernatorial candidate whom the author wants to emphasize would "make history" (and which doesn't mention Miles). Just this morning, the (usually accurate) Politics1.com stated that Winsome Sears had been the first African-American Republican to be elected to the Virginia General Assembly when, in fact, she was the first *female* African-American Republican to be so elected (over a dozen black Republicans were elected to the VA General Assembly during Reconstruction); similarly, Idaho gubernatorial candidate Paulette Jordan, if elected, would become the first *female Native-American* governor and the first *publicly Native-American* governor, but John Miles apparently would have beaten her out by 80 years to the milestone of first Native-American governor. If I had to choose between a short biography of a distinguished alumnus of NMMI in the school's alumni magazine and a news article that doesn't even mention Miles, I would rely on the source with the specific mention of Miles's ancestry. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 21:27, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I did some Google searching but I guess it wasn't deep enough or with the right keywords for some reason, so thanks for finding that! I am really hesitant about the NMMI newsletter though, I would not consider that a particularly reliable source. It's dated 2014, yet his WP article had that line added without a source in 2008 - how are we to know that the NMMI didn't use Wikipedia as its own reference? I'd really like something more definitive than this blurb about his son, which is by no means authoritative or a primary source. Unfortunately the "read more" link is dead. Being from Oklahoma it's perfectly likely Miles was indeed of Cherokee descent, but we don't know to what extent (was it an Elizabeth Warren-like family misunderstanding?) so I'd really like something that'll corroborate this beyond this alumni update, something older than the WP article. Reywas92Talk 04:04, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * If the Wikipedia article listed Miles as someone of Cherokee descent way back in 2008, it certainly is possible that the person who wrote Franklin Miles's short bio in the NMMI alumni magazine used that as his source for the Cherokee tidbit. It certainly is curious that there don't appear to be any articles out there regarding Governor Miles having Cherokee ancestry.


 * I've done some more digging today, and thought about it some more, and while I don't think that articles on how Paulette Jordan could become the first Native-American governor in U.S. history tell us anything about John Miles's ancestry, and although I would like to think that an alumni magazine at a prestigious New Mexico school would not state that an alumnus's father was Cherokee without having cleared it with said alumnus (who did not die until 2016) or his close relatives, there does not appear to be much evidence for the assertion that Miles was of Cherokee descent. The only things pointing at Miles being of partial Cherokee descent are the following:


 * (i) The fact that a couple of Wikipedia editors, at least one of whom appears to be from New Mexico (or at least had great interest in the state), edited John Miles's page in 2008 to say that his wife was of Native-American descent (she originally was described as Cherokee, and later as Choctaw) and that racism in New Mexico had caused him to hide his family's Native-American ancestry; the later edits that changed his wife from Cherokee to Choctaw then claimed that Miles himself was Cherokee and that thus he was hiding both his and his wife's ancestry.


 * (ii) A short biography in a 2014 edition of an alumni magazine from a New Mexico military academy mentions in passing that John Miles was "of Cherokee descent." This edition came out at a time in which John Miles's Wikipedia article asserted that he was of Cherokee ancestry, which could have been the source of the information.  And while it would have behooved the author to clear such information with Franklin Miles or his children or grandchildren, perhaps he didn't, or if he did there may be (as you speculated) family lore about John Miles's Cherokee background that may be more legend than fact.


 * (iii) John Miles originally was from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is not far from the Bradley County, TN home base for Tennessee's Cherokees.


 * (iv) Some random genealogical researcher found a Henry Miles from Tennessee who probably was of Cherokee descent (he was rejected by a Tennessee infantry unit during the Civil War for being of "mixed blood"). 


 * (v) From the photographs that I've seen of Miles, including the one from his Wikipedia article, he does seem to look like he has substantial Native-American ancestry.


 * So the evidence of John Miles's Cherokee ancestry is, at best, spotty and circumstantial. I don't think that Miles should be described as being of Cherokee descent, or be listed in articles about Native Americans, absent further evidence from reliable sources. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 15:44, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Elizabeth Warren?
At the very least, she warrants a mention in the "See Also" section as having repeatedly claimed Native American ancestry. Today (10/15/2018) she released the results of a DNA test that supposedly bolsters her claim, purporting to have refuted President Donald Trump's assertions to the contrary. Shankar Sivarajan (talk) 23:50, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I disagree that Senator Warren should be listed in an article about Native-American members of Congress. The DNA test shows that Warren has between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Amerindian ancestry (the DNA test can't even differentiate between ancestry from North American or South American Amerindians.  If we assume that her percentage of Native-Anerican ancestry is in the midpoint of the range--1/256th--then Warren is 0.39% Native American.  Such a tiny percentage of Native-American ancestry would not make one a Native Anerican even by the most generous definition, and it is likely that dozens of other members of Congress also are less than 1% Native American.  Being between 0.1% and 1.56% Native American just isn't noteworthy, even if such person's ancestry was the subject of a presidential-senatorial feud. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 02:50, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

To me this question brings up a larger issue. It seems to me that this list would make the most sense if it were limited to people who were actually part of a Native American community. This certainly does not include Sen. Warren, and it might involve removing some of the people currently on the list.

I'm not sure what would be the best way to formulate a criterion on that basis, but I'd be interested in any thoughts. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 05:39, 16 October 2018 (UTC)


 * The article's criterion is "documented tribal ancestry or affiliation". Neither of these are present, as the specific tribe is unknown and DNA analysis is not documentation. Just a quick look at a few people shows that John Mercer Langston's ancestry is only hypothesized, and the lack of documentation of affiliation should exclude him from the list. I don't think the list needs to be limited to tribal members only, but the connection should be known and relatively recent, rather than vague statements of parents' decent. Reywas92Talk 07:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @BlueMoonlet, you raise a good point, and @Reywas92, you are correct that the article requires "documented tribal ancestry or documentation." That being said, I don't know how much "documentation" we can require in the case of someone like John Mercer Langston, who was born in rural Virginia in 1829 and whose mother was a former slave of mixed black and Native-American ancestry.  It shouldn't surprise us that it would be uncertain whether his mother's tribal heritage was Pamunkey or whether it was of a different tribe, and I don't think that tribes in Virginia had official enrollments in the early 19th century against which we can verify from which tribe his mother descended.  For such cases, I would think that contemporary accounts of Langston's mother being of partial Native-American ancestry should be sufficient, since such accounts would not have existed had such ancestry been remote (plus a black slave woman with Native-American ancestry who was born in the first decade of the 19th century must have been the product of a relatively recent interracial relationship, since blacks had been living in Virginia for not much more than 150 years when Langston's mother was born).  I haven't read Helen Roundtree's book on the Powhatan Indians of Virginia, which is cited as the source of Langston's Native-American ancestry (or maybe of his possible tribal affiliation), but I don't think that it would make sense to exclude a person for whom we have evidence of substantial Native-American ancestry just because we aren't sure of to which tribe his grandparents or great-grandparents belonged.
 * I actually am more concerned with the lack of sourcing for the assertion that Hiram Revels was a Native American (Lumbee or otherwise). Vague statements that his parents were "of mixed European, African and Native-American descent" (which, come to think of it, is a fair description of many, perhaps most, Lumbee Indians) fall well short of documented tribal ancestry or documentation.  Contemporary accounts of which I am aware described Revels as a child of "octoroon" free people of color with mostly European ancestry, and if he had substantial Native-American ancestry it was not something that he ever talked about or that was discussed when the Senate was debating whether Revels had been a U.S. citizen for at least 9 years for purposes of meeting the constitutional qualifications for U.S. senators.  So I would like to see the source that describes Revels as being partly Native American; it seems to me that there is an assumption that he must have been a Lumbee because "Revels" is a typical Lumbee surname, but that certainly isn't "documentation" of anything.
 * In conclusion, assuming that the Wikipedia article on Langston correctly presented the source that evidences his mother being a former slave of African and Native-American ancestry, I would leave Langston on the List of Native Americans in the United States Congress article even if we can't be sure of from what precise tribe he descended. As for Revels, I think that, unless we can locate reliable sources that evidence his Native-American ancestry, he should be removed from the article. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 23:27, 16 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I forgot to mention another congressman listed on the article for which I have not seen a reliable source of his Native-American ancestry: Travis Childers. One gets many hits on Google regarding his supposed Chickasaw and Choctaw ancestry, but it seems like all of them point back to Wikipedia. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 23:50, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Good points, I had just looked through them briefly to see survey what we were dealing with. Thanks for the research and I agree with your assessment for Revels as well. I'd remove Childers too, perhaps leave a message at his talk page. Reywas92Talk 05:19, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for these helpful thoughts. There is no reason why we must be bound by the criteria of "documented tribal ancestry or affiliation."  We're writing the page, and we can change the criteria if we decide to do so.  I would like to see the criteria focus more on identity and less on genetics.  I would exclude a person who identified solely as White or Black, even if genealogical research reveals a Native American ancestor.  I would also exclude a person who might have (so to speak) mentioned their Native American ancestry at a cocktail party but did not actually identify with the community, even if that ancestry was a fact.
 * An example of a person I might exclude is John Floyd. It seems likely true that he had a single distant Native American ancestor, but to my knowledge his cultural identity was entirely White.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 07:26, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I did some further research, and it turns out that more people than I thought were enrolled tribal members. I created a version of the page with an additional column noting tribal membership, but in the end I don't think that's helpful.  Instead, I'll preserve the information here.
 * WP page mentions they were enrolled tribal members: Owen, (Cherokee), Curtis (Kaw), Campbell (Northern Cheyenne), Carter (Chickasaw), Hastings (Cherokee), Reifel (Rosebud Sioux), Carson (Cherokee), Cole (Chickasaw), Mullin (Cherokee)
 * No mention on their own WP pages of being enrolled tribal members, and no particular reason to believe that they were: Revels, Floyd, Langston, Stigler, McSpadden
 * Difficult cases: The WP page of Husting's grandfather mentions that Husting's mother was an enrolled member of the Menominee.  Cain is mentioned as having been born to a Black father and a Cherokee mother.  The WP page of Rogers' father mentions that the elder Rogers was an enrolled member of the Cherokee.  Hicks was born on a reservation, but there is no mention of membership.
 * --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 08:03, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Terrific research! I don't think a separate column is necessary, but I think marking tribal membership in the ancestry column would make sense. Reywas92Talk 00:38, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * and please note that I haven't forgotten about our conversation from almost two and one-half years ago, and that I read up a bit on Congressman Floyd Hicks.  Not only is there no record of him being a member of the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, he wasn't even born in an Indian reservation as some (unsourced) Internet sites had claimed.  In fact, there are no Indian reservations in his town of birth (Prosser, Washington), much less a Paiute-Shoshone reservation.
 * What must have happened is that someone on the Internet confused Congressman Floyd Hicks with a different Floyd Hicks, who was a member of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribes of western Nevada and was the plaintiff in the 2001 U.S. Supreme Court case of Nevada v. Hicks. That other, much younger Floyd Hicks was born in the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone reservation, which is in western Nevada, and someone stuck into Congressman Hicks's biography on a military wiki that he had been born in that reservation, which was magically transferred from Nevada to Prosser, Washington.  From there, it must have been picked up by an editor who, in good faith, included Hicks on the list of Native American members of Congress.  I have corrected the record by removing Hicks's entry from the article, with an explanation of why I did so.
 * There might still be some congressmen listed in the article that were not actually Native American, but at least there's one less one now. More research of reliable sources still needs to be conducted.AuH2ORepublican (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Wow nice finds! Reywas92Talk 18:52, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Well done, . Thank you.  —BlueMoonlet (t/c) 03:01, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * @AuH2ORepublican Red flags appeared as I saw Hiram Revels listed as a Lumbee member on this page, and I just read up on y'all's conversation from 2018 about those same concerns. The written criteria for inclusion on the page (documented tribal membership, not mere ancestry) hasn't been demonstrated, for sure; the criteria of self-identification as a member of a native community (organized & recognized or otherwise) that @BlueMoonlet proposed, that's not clear for Revels either. Did you ultimately decide to be more conservative and to leave him up there, or did you find some speeches where he discusses being Croatan or whatever the Lumbee called themselves back then? Thanks y'all Iaksones (talk) 19:11, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Iaksones, I don't think that anything has happened recently regarding the inclusion of Revels and other 19th-century African Americans in this article. My comment was that such persons were born prior to tribes having official enrollment, and that we shouldn't impose modern standards of proof for Native American ancestry to persons for whom there is historical evidence of such ancestry.  I agree that the claim that Revels was of partial Lumbee ancestry is rather shaky, since it's based on some contemporaneous claims that he was of triracial descent and the reference to Lumbees came later.  AuH2ORepublican (talk) 22:45, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

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 * Sharice Davids.jpg
 * I commented it out anyway. It's improper for us to claim that she's in office until January 3, as anything could happen between now and then.  There exists functionality in the infobox of her article to describe her as a representative-elect in the meantime. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  20:38, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Should she die sometime in the next couple months, or New Mexico secedes from the Union, I believe her election would still be relevant to this article. It is absurd to call the assumption a member-elect would become a member crystal ball speculation or simply routine news. Reywas92Talk 00:42, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm perfectly capable of browsing a revision history. You placed "member-elect" next to their entries at the same time that you reverted my edit.  What I reverted claimed that they were already members and not members-elect.  Going this route in the first place, not to mention your claim of absurdity on my part, seriously confuses the difference between regurgitating headlines and reflecting facts.  There's been entirely too much of that sort of thing occurring in this election cycle as it is. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  00:59, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Reywas's edit summary of their latest reversion states "Nonsense. No part of their election is unfounded speculation or fleeting news." Therein lies the problem. You are attempting to push the POV that being elected is all that matters and that actually being sworn in to the office is a mere formality without proving that a factual basis exists for such a stance. I'm sure that you can throw out a URL leading to a media outlet who will agree with such a POV, but I don't have time to argue that fact-checking rather than "Why, I found it lying around on this website, so therefore..." is at the heart of WP:RS, and therefore at the heart of presenting facts. What is fact in this case is that neither is a member of Congress at this moment, something you're trying to belittle or marginalize in order to push this POV, because rehashing election night headlines while they're fresh on your mind is evidently more important to you than coming back on January 3 when they're actually in office, and treating the readership as if they're incapable of telling the difference. This is hardly the only place where this occurs. Go look in any number of other places on the encyclopedia and you'll see attempts to portray United States legislative terms which actually begin and end in January of odd-numbered years as having begun or ended in even-numbered years, merely because a media outlet chose to portray it as such and a URL exists to back that up. The reason for such a portrayal is to push this same POV that being elected is all that matters and that actually being sworn in to the office is a mere formality. This is the exact same kind of spam I've seen every two years for who knows how long and nothing's changed WRT whether or not we're presenting consistent and/or factual and/or neutral information. I probably won't be have anything more to say on this because I just don't have time to be the boy poking his finger in the hole in the dike to stop the flood. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:13, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
 * As Reywas92 remarked, it would still be appropriate to mention Davids and Haaland on this page even if something were to happen to prevent them from actually serving in Congress. They have been elected to Congress, and that makes them worthy of mention on this page whether or not they actually serve.  Thus, I agree that it is appropriate to list them at this time with the appropriate disclaimers that they are members-elect, and not yet members.
 * I do not find the complaints with regard to WP:CRYSTAL, WP:NOTNEWS, or WP:RS to be compelling. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 16:51, 9 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it's an official Wikipedia policy, but certainly the practice in articles listing members of Congress is to wait for a member-elect's term to commence before adding him or her to the list. There's nothing wrong with adding language to the introductory paragraph noting Tuesday's election of two Native-American women to Congress, but we should wait until January 3, 2019 to add them to the official list in the article. For one thing, it's tempting fate to report on future events, since if one of the two were to die before January 3 she would not serve in Congress. Similarly, one should never place an end date for the term of a lame-duck member of Congress, given that such member may die or resign prior to January 3 (although that is not an issue in this particular article, given that neither of the two currently serving Native-American Representatives are lame ducks).


 * So we have two options for dealing with the two newly elected Native Americans. One is simply to remove them from the list and wait until their term begins on January 3 (God willing) to add them; that is what typically is done in articles listing members of Congress. The other option is to add a section for members-elect listing the two members-elect and their expected start dates; then on January 3, we can move them to the main list and eliminate the members-elect section. This is what is being done for the list of African-American Representatives. Check it out: List_of_African-American_United_States_Representatives.  In both cases, the two members-elect would be mentioned in the introductory paragraph as part of an explanation as to how there currently are two Native-American Representatives but that soon there will be four.  Which of the two options would you all prefer?  To repeat, both options are temporary fixes until the two members-elect commence their congressional careers on January 3, 2019.


 * As for what should be done if tragedy were to strike and one of the members-elect were to die after she was certified as the winner of the election but before her term commenced, I agree that they still should be mentioned in the article. The Wikipedia articles listing Hispanic and Latino members of Congress, African-American Representatives, and African-American Senators, respectively, include entries for persons who were elected to Congress but not seated.  All such occasions took place in the 19th century, and the persons listed separately in such articles are one Hispanic Senator-elect who stepped down for health reasons before being sworn in, one black Senator-elect who was not seated because of an election contest, and two black Representatives who were not seated because of election contests.  Surely these precedents would be applicable should tragedy strike one of the two Native-American members-elect before January 3.  AuH2ORepublican (talk) 19:05, 9 November 2018 (UTC)


 * A separate section like the Af-Am article would work, but I see nothing wrong it as it is. Worrying about what could happen between now and then is dumb and taking that into consideration is more speculative than not. Reywas92Talk 22:48, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It is false to claim that members-elect are members of Congress. For one thing, they cannot vote in Congress.  Encyclopedias describe things that have happened, not things that are expected to happen.  AuH2ORepublican (talk) 12:16, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note for posterity: This comment by User:AuH2ORepublican was accompanied by an edit placing the members-elect into a separate table. I think this is a good solution.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 21:48, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

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 * Sharice Davids official portrait.jpg

Sam Houston?
While Houston had no tribal blood, he was given tribal membership in the Cherokee, and at one point married into the Cherokee. The page itself simply says "ancestry or affiliation" and I think Houston passes the affiliation test. I don't want to add it before getting a consensus. Awnman (talk) 23:48, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm not a Native American, and certainly no expert on whom Native Americans consider "one of them," but here's my two-cents worth on the change that you propose. I don't think that a person without Native American ancestry, and who was brought up by non-Native Americans in a non-Native American setting, should be deemed to be a Native American for purposes of an article on Native Americans in the U.S. Congress just because he became "affiliated" with the Cherokee Tribe as a young adult.


 * If a white person, born and raised by a white family outside of a tribal context, went to live with the Cherokee at 16, became a tribal member, got married to another white person who also joined the tribe, and had a child who was raised within the Cherokee community, then I firmly believe that *that child* should be considered a Native American--despite not having Native American ancestry--due to his "affiliation" with the Cherokee Tribe. But that would not make his parents Native Americans even had they lived out the rest of their lives within the Cherokee Tribe (which is not what Sam Houston did, anyways; he moved back to the "white world" after a few years).


 * Perhaps an analogy to the definition of Hispanic (not Latino, which is a different term) would be enlightening here. If a German moves to Spain at age 16 and lives there for the next 30 years (obtaining Spanish citizenship along the way), he would not be considered "Hispanic" when he subsequently emigrated to the United States.  However, if such German married, say, a German woman who likewise moved to Spain, and they have a child who is born and raised in Spain, attended Spanish schools, spoke the Spanish language in his public life since a young age, etc. (in other words, not being raised as an ex-pat temporarily abroad), such child certainly would be deemed to be Hispanic if he moved to the United States at the age of 25.  That 25-year-old immigrant would not be Hispanic by ancestry--neither of his parents is of Spanish descent--but he would be Hispanic by "affiliation" (so to speak), since he lived his life as a Spaniard since birth (and, most importantly, during his formative years).


 * In my opinion, Sam Houston has less of a claim to being considered a Native American member of Congress than that German who emigrated to Spain at 16 would have to being considered Hispanic. I believe that being deemed a Native American "by affiliation" would cover persons who grew up within a tribal structure despite not having Native American ancestry, not persons who went to live with a Native American tribe as a young adult.  For that reason, my vote is to exclude Sam Houston from the article.  AuH2ORepublican (talk) 19:19, 7 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I think that both ancestry and community identity should be required for inclusion in this page. Sam Houston does not qualify.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 02:40, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Delegates from Hawaii?
Should Hawaiian people be included in this list? I don't know if they count as 'native American' 2001:1970:529D:5300:EC31:CF6B:DFFD:EB15 (talk) 02:30, 6 April 2021 (UTC)


 * This has been discussed in the past, and the consensus was that Native Hawaiians (who are categorized as Pacific Islanders, not as Native Americans, in the U.S. Census) should not be listed. Please note that the article's second paragraph reads as follows:


 * "All entries on this list are related to Native American tribes based in the contiguous United States. No Alaska Natives have ever served in Congress. There are Native Hawaiians who have served in Congress, but they are not listed here because they are distinct from North American Natives."


 * There is a separate article, List of Asian Americans and Pacific Islands Americans in the United States Congress, that does list Native Hawaiian members of Congress, both Delegates from the days in which Hawaii was a territory and Representatives and Senators from Hawaii's statehood era. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 02:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

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 * Cherokee Nation Vice President of Government Relations Kimberly Teehee, commenting on her nomination as a delegate to the U.S. Congress, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Aug. 22, 2019 (cropped2).jpg