WASHINGTON – Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has quietly removed many federal datasets and research reports from the public domain — some of which included vital information on Tribal communities. Now more than ever, access to accurate and representative data on Native communities is essential.
Even before these datasets were scrubbed, data collection in Indian Country was already a significant challenge.
To explore this issue further, Brookings Metro and the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) collaborated to examine just how difficult data collection is among tribes in Southern California. Earlier this week, they released a report on the challenges of data collection among tribes in San Diego County. The report has national implications and includes recommendations to address the problem.
The report outlines several key challenges that affect data collection on Tribes and Native peoples, including insights from Tribal leaders and stakeholders on data usage and priorities in the Southern California region. There are 33 federally recognized Tribes in Southern California (defined as the SCAG region plus San Diego County), 16 of which have reservations that are either partially or entirely within the six counties of the SCAG region.
“As we write in the report, many Tribes are forced to rely on data that would be considered inadequate for nearly any other level of government in the country. Tribes often face barriers to governance, such as lack of tax revenues or restrictions on the control and development of their own lands, that other levels of government don’t face,” said Robert Maxim (Mashpee Wampanoag), a fellow at Brookings Metro, in an interview with Native News Online. “When the data that Tribal governments and other Native-serving entities rely on is also insufficient, it further undermines Tribal capacity to effectively govern their lands and citizens.”
The report identifies five key limitations when it comes to measuring Native American people and Tribal communities:
- Sample sizes are often too small, affecting the quality of data.
- Tribal reservations tend to be remote, making data collection difficult.
- Data often categorizes Natives solely by race, oversimplifying the complexities of Native and Tribal identities.
- Data sets are frequently developed without Tribal input.
- There is an over-reliance on non-Tribal entities — including federal, state, local governments, nonprofits, and for-profits — for data.
Small sample sizes in data about Native communities can lead to significant variance across datasets, large margins of error, or even missing data entirely. This has led the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) to describe the phenomenon as creating an “Asterisk Nation,” where an asterisk often replaces a data point in reports about Native Americans due to the lack of reliable information.
When data about Native communities with small sample sizes is aggregated at the population level, it can vary significantly across major Census Bureau products, making it difficult to determine which dataset is most accurate. Nationally, the total population of Native Americans varies by as much as 2.3 million people — a 24.1% difference — across three commonly used federal datasets: the 2020 decennial census, the 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) one-year estimates, and the 2023 ACS five-year estimates. In comparison, the total U.S. population varies by only 1.0% across those same datasets.
The report identifies key changes that could improve the quality of data on Native communities. These include encouraging municipalities to re-examine existing data policies and develop Native-specific data protocols, increasing Tribal involvement in surveying their own residents, and reforming data aggregation practices to address undercounts.
“Tribes, just like any other governmental entity, need good data to provide the most effective services for their citizens and the highest quality stewardship of their land,” Maxim said. “This is particularly important at a moment when Tribes are working to help more non-Native people understand that Native Americans aren’t just a racial category, but in fact are a political group with their own self-governance.”
Currently, Native Americans are classified as a race in demographic data collection, which often results in many Native-identifying individuals being misclassified or overlooked. Datasets frequently aggregate multiracial individuals into a generic “two or more races” category, without specifying which identities are represented. According to Brookings' analysis of 2020 Decennial Census data, nearly nine in ten American Indians and Alaska Natives in California identify as Hispanic or multiracial.
“Because most Native Americans in California are either multiracial or Hispanic, only about one in 10 individuals identified as American Indian or Alaska Native in California are classified as such in many federal, state, and local data sets,” the report states.
To address these data collection issues, the report includes six key findings about the state of Native American data in the SCAG region, based on conversations with Tribal leaders, non-Native government officials, and other stakeholders serving Native communities.
Brookings engaged with the following eight Tribes: the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Cahuilla Band of Indians, the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the Pechanga Band of Indians, the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, and the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians.
The report notes that nearly all Tribal stakeholders described instances in which data on Native communities was used and leveraged across various government functions, including economic and business development, infrastructure investment, and spatial planning. Many stakeholders emphasized that data is a critical tool for securing funding and meeting the needs of Tribal citizens.
Another key issue raised by Tribal leaders is the disparity in data analysis capacity across Tribes. While some Tribes have established in-house analytics departments, others lack the resources or staff to conduct meaningful data work.
Tribal leaders also expressed a range of opinions on the appropriate role of state and regional agencies in data development. This diversity of perspectives underscores the difficulty of applying a one-size-fits-all approach, the report notes.
The report includes a number of recommended actions for regional organizations, the federal government, and state officials to improve Native data quality both within the SCAG region and nationwide. These actions are divided into two levels: regional initiatives, and state and federal actions.
At the regional level, the report recommends developing a regional Indigenous data strategy and creating a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to formalize relationships between regional government agencies and Tribes.
They also recommend that regional organizations develop new data programs and tools with Tribes, relay Tribal data needs to higher government agencies, support funding Indigenous-led data coalitions, and expand data skill development for Tribal and non-Tribal youth. State and federal agencies can support these efforts by offering funding and providing technical support. Above all, there needs to be universal support for Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, especially when it comes to data collection. Tribes should be allowed to provide their own data when it comes to access grants and other funding. The report recommends that state and federal agencies explore alternatives to blanket sovereign immunity waivers for state- and federal-funded projects, allow flexibility in waiving grant requirements, increase Tribal access to public agencies’ data, and develop secure online portals that would make data accessible.
Additional recommendations for regional organizations include:
- Co-developing new data programs and tools with Tribes;
- Communicating Tribal data needs to higher levels of government;
- Supporting and funding Indigenous-led data coalitions;
- Expanding data skill development for both Tribal and non-Tribal youth.
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