After Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts, changed a documentation category on a student questionnaire from "American Indian" to "Native American," the number of "Native Americans" increased by 1,500 percent in two years. As it turns out, a large number of students checked off the box under the assumption that "Native American" meant they had been born and raised in the United States, so the college returned to its old classification system. The vice president of institutional development commented, "We tried to be sensitive, and we just ended up confusing everyone."

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