Asian American

An Asian American can be generally defined as a person of Asian ancestry or origin who was born in or is an immigrant to the United States.

Related Topics:
Asian - United States

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The term "Asian American" is credited to the historian Yuji Ichioka who, in the late 1960s, used it to describe members of a new pan-ethnic radical political identity who shared common histories, experiences, and goals. In the United States, this term has widely supplanted the term "oriental" which was popularly used before the 1990s to describe East Asian peoples regardless of nationality, upbringing, or origin. Some have argued "oriental" is politically loaded and referenced a colonial "other" (see orientalism).

Related Topics:
Yuji Ichioka - 1960s - Oriental - 1990s - East Asia - Orientalism

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"Asian American", like "Hispanic American", can not be defined as a similar group of people sharing similar cultures or physical features. For example, Indian Americans, Filipino Americans, and Japanese Americans are very different from each other in both culture and physical features. Like the term "Hispanic American", saying that a person is "Asian" is not specifically referring to a certain lifetyle or culture and could refer to a wide range of different Asian ethnic sub-groups.

Related Topics:
Hispanic American - Indian American - Filipino American - Japanese American

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Additionally, although the term "Asian" in the United States is most popularly used as a term to group peoples with physical characteristics resembling East Asian people, Asians from the Indian Subcontinent, and Southeast Asia (including the Philippines, Indonesia, and Insular Malaysia) are also included in the Asian American grouping for cultural studies and academic works, as well as for official government and census purposes.

Related Topics:
Indian Subcontinent - Southeast Asia - Philippines - Indonesia - Malaysia

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While immigrants from the non-African parts of the "Middle East" (i.e Iran, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia) are all from the continent of Asia, they have generally neither been sufficiently visibly distinct as a group in America nor have they historically arrived in such large numbers to warrant attention as a major American racial or ethnic group until very recently (see September 11, 2001 attacks). As a result, they are not considered by most Americans to be typical Asians or Asian Americans, and are classified as "whites" for official racial purposes and popularly referred to as "Middle Eastern". For these same reasons, northern Asians such as Siberians and peoples from formerly Soviet Central Asian states are usually not spoken of as "Asian Americans" either and are part of Europe for the US Census racial purposes.

Related Topics:
Middle East - Iran - Southwest Asia - Central Asia - Ethnic group - September 11, 2001 attacks - Soviet

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