pretendian

Noun capitalized: Pretendian

Pretendian (plural Pretendians)

1. (derogatory, informal) A person who falsely claims to have Native American or Indigenous Canadian ancestry.
   • Natalie waited, expecting the usual white platitude, It's okay; I'm one-sixteenth Cherokee myself, or perhaps a dose of American Indian Princess Syndrome, or an acknowledgment of the glut of Pretendians of late.2016, MaryJanice Davidson, Danger, Sweetheart, page 104
   • Although the United States has a long history of white people “playing Indian,” as the scholar Philip J. Deloria calls it in his book of the same name, the 1990s saw the beginning of what would eventually be significant pushback by Native Americans against so-called Pretendians or Pretend Indians...2021 May 25, Sarah Viren, quoting Andrea Smith, “The Native Scholar Who Wasn’t”, in The New York Times Magazine, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original...