It’s a matter of demographics. In the UK, the largest population of people of Asian descent is from the Indian subcontinent, so when you say “Asian” in the UK, everyone assumes you mean “from the Indian subcontinent”. In the US, however, Asians from East Asia (China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) are more common than from South Asia, and so Americans assume by default that “Asian” refers to people from East Asia. In other parts of the world, there are probably other parts of Asia that people think of as the default for “Asian”: It’s a very large and diverse continent, after all.
In both countries, of course, anyone with even a modicum of education knows that both India and China are part of Asia. It’s just the default association that’s different.
For an even more extreme example, would one refer to an Israeli or an Arab as being “Asian”? They are, of course, but I don’t know of anyone who would use that term to describe someone from the Middle East. Although, it wasn’t so long ago that the Middle East was referred to as part of the “Orient” (Istanbul was the eastern terminus of the Orient Express, for instance), even though that term now mostly refers to Eastern Asia.
That’s really it in a nutshell. It’s not what’s right or wrong, but rather what’s the local default meaning of the unqualified term “Asian”.
When I worked in IT …
In my central US city the local IT industry and hence my company’s local branch had lots of India Asian immigrants working there. Another branch of the same company was in Los Angeles. They had lots of China & Viet Nam Asian immigrants working there.
Real quickly the palefaces (heh) learned to say “East Asian” or “South Asian” lest confusion reign supreme. But until I was immersed in that world I’d have used @Chronos’s default understandings.
Speaking as an Indian-American person, I can testify that we Indian-Americans use the term “Indian-American” all the time. In organizations, some instances of “Indian-American” has been expanded to “South Asian-American” and Indian-Americans do participate in broader organizations under the umbrellas of “Asian-American” or “Asian and Pacific-American.”
In casual speech, many Indian-Americans and other people of South Asian origin use the term “Desi,” which in Hindi and other Indian languages literally means “of the (i.e., my) country,” very similar to how the Neapolitan word “paisano” is used by Italian-Americans. Over the last 20 years, “Desi” has become more mainstream.
In some ways I think that it would be best to refer to everyone in the most finely divided way (as far as can be known) in talking about their ancestry. Thus I should be referred to as being of German-English-Swiss ancestry. Barack Obama should be referred to as being of Luo-English-Scottish-Welsh-Irish-German-Swiss ancestry. (Luo is an ethnic group in Kenya). Trevor Noah should be referred to as being of Swiss-Xhosa ancestry. Kamala Harris should be referred to as being of Tamil-African-Irish-Scottish ancestry. (Her father had Irish and Scottish ancestry as well as African ancestry.) I know a woman who has ancestors from at least twelve countries scattered over Europe, Asia, and North America.
This will split us into two groups. One will be the picky people who can memorize the precise ancestry of everyone they talk to. The other group will be the ones who will find themselves saying things like “How dare you want to marry my daughter? She’s a fine young lady of um, whatever ancestry. You’re of um, well, . . . oh, forget it. Go ahead and marry her.”
Let’s face it. In the future everyone will be of such a mixture of ancestries that they will have to do an extensive search to discover them all. We all need to get used to that.
As a South Asian (my parents are from Pakistan), I refer to myself in those terms. And always checked “Asian” in the forms that ask (sometimes they say South Asian or Asian Indian).
I will use Desi among other South Asians.
(Also I’ve started referring to the Middle East as West Asia - as the ME just seems too Euro-Centrist of a term)
But it sounds like you’re saying that an Indian, a Pakistani, and a Bangladeshi would all refer to each other as “my countryman”? That’s not what I would have expected, from the history of those countries.
A couple generations hence that may not be as true as it is today though. Your example of Paisano for folks of Italian heritage is relevant. 50 or 80 years ago only Italian-Americans would use the term and only for each other.
Nowadays, at least in heavily Italian-American areas like NYC or NJ you may well hear folks who’re definitely not Italian-American say things like “Hey Bob, check out those two Paisan’s over there.”
Yeah. In these more aware/sensitive times that’d be somewhere between inappropriate appropriation and negative epithet. In the right tone of voice it need not be, but it sure could be.
It’ll be nice when we can all just say “people” when referring to, you know, people. We’re gaining on it, but it’s the work of decades or centuries yet. With, recent evidence to the fore, a lot of ignorant backlash on the way to that Promised Land of harmony.
It would be fair to call Indian Americans as Asian Americans if all Whites were called European Americans. Chinese, Japanese, Indians, etc, have cultures going far back than even most European countries. Asian is not an identity that most Asians relate to - it’s a term made for white guys to easily label people.
And as pointed out in a previous thread, Indian Americans were made to check a box in government forms that included Pacific Islander about a decade back. Figure that
That maybe offensive to Many Pakistanis or Bangladeshis because alcohol is forbidden in Islam.
Desi is used to mean Domestic by people from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Mostly because they share a common history and the word was historically used to differentiate things/people/music/food between domestic and the colonizing influence.
I would also point to the National Museum of the American Indian, which was developed in close cooperation with Indian tribes. The founding director and current director are both American Indians. I think that if American Indians in general preferred to be called Native Americans they would have insisted on a different name for the museum. I think that many “palefaces” are probably greater sticklers about using “Native American.”
