Allan Houser
(1914-1994)

Allan Houser, a member of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, was the first Native American to receive the country’s highest art award, the National Medal of Arts. Just before his death in 1994, his sculpture of an American Eagle became the first gift crafted by an American Indian given to a foreign head-of-state — the Emperor of Japan. Houser’s work can be seen at the United Nations in New York City, the British Royal Collection, and in countless private, corporate, and museum collections. Buffalo Dance, the artwork chosen for the Census 2000 poster, presents costumed dancers and singers performing a New Mexican Pueblo ceremony. It was purchased through the Alice Rossin Colquitt Fund, Frank E. Everett, and the Smithsonian Collections Acquisition Program for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art.

On their 1990 census form, almost 2 million people indicated that their race was American Indian or Alaska Native — but more than 7 million people indicated this culture was part of their ancestry. The number of people claiming American Indian or Alaska Native heritage should be even greater in Census 2000.