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 obtain up-to-date map feature information for some of the larger reservations. Such feature update information was solicited from many organizations at that time, and was a necessary basis for the polygon structure of the TIGER data base. For a more detailed discussion, see, “Census Blocks and Block Groups.”

Throughout the 1980s, the Census Bureau consulted with an advisory committee on American Indian and Alaska Native issues—one of four minority advisory committees formed to provide advice and counsel to the Census Bureau on key issues for the decennial census. In addition, the Census Bureau formed an American Indian and Alaska Native Task Force, made up of staff members whose primary mission was to improve the enumeration of, and to further outreach to, these populations. Both the advisory committee and the task force were instrumental in bringing about one of the major improvements that the Census Bureau made for the enumeration of the AIANA populations in the 1990 census—the Tribal Liaison Program. Although not a geographic program, per se, the Tribal Liaison Program gave American Indian tribal liaisons the chance to review the reservation and trust land boundaries that the Census Bureau intended to recognize for the 1990 census. For Alaska, there was a comparable program—the Alaska Native Village Liaison Program.

In 1985 and 1986, the Census Bureau sponsored 12 regional meetings for the American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Participants included staff from the BIA, the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Education, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and representatives of local community-based organizations and tribal governments. The purpose of the meetings was to solicit input for 1990 plans and receive recommendations concerning three key decennial census issues affecting the American Indian and Alaska Native community: geographic area identification, census outreach and promotion, and the 1990 census questionnaire content. American Indian and Alaska Native Areas5-9