According to the 2010 census, 5.2 million people identified as at least part American Indian and Alaska Native. More than half (2.9 million) identified as AIAN alone. About 2.3 million reported being AIAN in combination with at least one other race —a segment that grew 39 percent compared with 10 years earlier.

Being counted is “pivotal to democracy, civic engagement, federal dollars, economic development,” said Amber Ebarb, a policy analyst at the National Congress of American Indians. “And if there’s an undercount in Indian country, especially on reservations, that’s where the need is greatest.”

Census officials were in San Diego in October at the congress’s annual convention, reaching out to tribal leaders to get input on how best to enumerate a population that is largely not fond of any inquiry from government agencies.

“When we do enumeration, we work with tribal governments,” said Nancy Potok, the deputy director and chief operating officer of the Census Bureau. “We have a long history of trying to get involved, but I think we can do better with the use of technology and partnerships.”

The online decennial census will make its national debut in 2020, and although the goal is to make it easier for people to respond to the questionnaires, that may not be the case for those in remote areas with poor or no Internet connectivity.

A recent survey showed that almost 400,000 AIAN households don’t have an Internet service provider and more than 18,000 others have dial-up Internet only.

The San Diego meeting with tribal leaders was behind closed doors, but many attendees discussed their concerns openly.

“They do a great job trying to do outreach, but obviously there’s a problem,” said Aaron Payment, the chairman of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan, the largest tribe east of the Mississippi, with 43,000 members.

He said tribes are in a better position to count their members than the government. His tribe has hired a data analyst and is conducting its own census with the help of a grant from the National Congress of American Indians. He is pushing for the government to let the tribe do the count, using the government’s methodology.

“We do our own census. We have actual data,” said Payment, who estimated that the government’s American Community Survey count of people living in his tribe’s service area is off by 21 percent.

Tribal geography is another complication. There are service areas. There are reservations. And there are different tribal rules for who qualifies as a member.

Federally recognized tribes still operate under a blood quantum rule. Most require one-quarter American Indian blood to qualify for tribal membership. Others ask for less, some more.

“There are a lot of people who are less than a quarter who don’t think they’re Indian,” Payment said.

And when they’re not tribal members, they may hesitate to identify themselves as American Indian.

The census is testing adding to its questionnaire a tribal membership category, which has been embraced by some and resisted by others.

“The tribal affiliation regime was imposed by the U.S. government, and it doesn’t capture the complexities,” said Will Micklin, the first vice president of the Central Council of southeastern Alaska and the CEO of the Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians in California’s San Diego County.

As more American Indians intermarry, fewer feel comfortable identifying themselves as Native because they have no tribal connection, he said.

Micklin is also concerned that the count, which is divided into census blocks, does not capture the full extent of poverty in Indian country. “You have millionaires who buy ranches,” he said. Their presence immediately jacks up the household income of the area.

He would like to see every tribe listed on the census form to make sure people can properly identify — not something that the census is likely to do.

“Every race, every ethnicity would like every option listed,” Potok said. She said that nothing will be done without the input of the AIAN community. “We have no dog in this fight.”

But not all agree.

“These are categories that were forced on us,” said Micklin, who said that suspicion of government is a huge barrier to an accurate count. American Indians “are worried about the consequences of reporting. What they know is that when Indians were ID’d, bad things happened.”

He too would like to see tribes conduct their own census.

“The challenging piece of this is capturing the affiliation correctly, because it varies a lot,” Potok said. “Each tribe has different [membership] criteria.”