The use of the term “Lamanite” to refer to people indigenous to the Americas and the Pacific Islands is problematic.
First, the idea that they all share a common Israelite ancestry is unprovable. DNA evidence conflicts with that narrative. Archaeological and anthropological evidence doesn’t support it. And even the LDS church is moving away from the idea that these Indigenous people are exclusively descendants of Lehi.
Second, it contributes to panindigeneity, the idea that Indigenous people are homogenous, that they aren’t separate nations with different languages, cultures, beliefs, customs, and so on. It erases their cultural individualism.
Third, the idea that people indigenous to a place are merely just immigrants to a place, similar to Europeans, is a way for white people to justify their claims to land and resources. Saying that a people have been in the Americas, for example, for only 3,000 years, instead of tens of thousands of years minimizes their right to exist on this land, and maximizes the right of white people to exist on this land.
Finally, no matter how much you try, there is just too much racist language tied up in the term “Lamanite”. Through much of the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites are portrayed as filthy, lascivious, primitive, violent, and base, as people who needed saving from white Nephites. You can’t erase that. No amount of effort will ever make “Lamanite” a positive term.
