You can check multiple boxes, as the form clearly says.
I really couldn’t care less what “racial reference” is proper for Kamala Harris. I just hope she’s the next VP of the US and we can call her “Vice President”.
Although you don’t say it explicitly, I think you are saying that this is a recent development which it is not. More than 100 years back when Tagore got the Nobel prize, Iqbal (an Urdu/ Persian poet) was the biggest critic. Iqbal’s contention was that his poetry was much superior but he didn’t get the Nobel prize since the Brits didn’t consider the Muslims favorably. I can give you other examples, if needed.
Yeah but I worry much more about the lack of democracy in some of these countries. Nationalism by one elected government can get fixed by the next elected one, but a dive to fundamentalism in an authoritarian state is perpetual:
I understood the question as check the box you most identify with not check every box that represents the smallest percentage of your DNA.
You could do that. They don’t check. But if you want to, you can check all the boxes that apply, that you know of.
I’m particularly aware of this because my son is half Asian, half Caucasian, so I always check 2 boxes for his race if possible.
You’re meant to check all the boxes that reflect your personal identity. You won’t be held to reporting your entire ancestry.
I just wanted to thank you and @am77494 for some informative posts about culture and history of the Indian subcontinent. I have heard the term desi used by several of my friends and many western celebrities with Indian heritage, so I wondered if it will eventually lead to broader usage of desi to refer to people from South Asia by non-South Asian people (even if it doesn’t really make sense based on the word’s linguistic origins), or if it will remain a term that only South Asians will use to refer to themselves. It is a rather nice neat term that doesn’t have the ambiguity of “Asian” and is shorter than “South Asian”.
Mine is very similar to yours.
In my reading of popular English literature of the time, people from India were seldom called Indians or Asians. The were called Hindu, Bengali, Pathan, Sikh, (etc) and black. For example, Little Black Sambo is from South Asia (India), not from Africa. (Actually calling people black was thoughtless at best, when not deeply insulting, because India was just as colorist as any other country)
Labeling people as ‘Asian’ rather than ‘black’ (or n–) was a post-colonial courtesy, and was partly due to the fact that, at that time, in England, ‘Indian’ meant ‘Red Indian’ meant indigenous/aboriginal American.
– I don’t say Native American, because, at that time and place, ‘native’ as in “Australian Native” or “Native Englishman” meant people born and raised in a location, not indigenous or aboriginal.
Watching her on TV, I was immediately struck by how Middle Class and American she projects. Not just because her accent is so similar to that of my relatives.
I’m trying to think what my most racist American acquaintances would have thought of her, and I can’t help but think… they’d be mostly focusing on her politics.
Those are specific identities within India, except black which Indians don’t consider them to be.
The OP is wrt to the USA and I believe Mark Twain can be called popular English Literature of the time. With that premise,
There is 100+ occurrences of the word Indian in Mark Twain’s travel diary “Following the Equator”, available here : FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, COMPLETE
Here are some quotes
“At home, people wonder why Christianity does not make faster progress in India. They hear that the Indians believe easily, and that they have a natural trust in miracles…,”
“ His wages are large—from an Indian point of view—and he feeds and clothes himself out of them…”
“ The Indian is open to prophecy at all times; argument may fail to convince him, but not prophecy…”
I am not sure I am finding much evidence for your claim.
I’m in a Commonwealth country, and we make a distinction between English literature and American literature. I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.
She very much has the “Favorite middle school teacher/cool auntie/competent coworker who everyone knows will be manager one day” vibe. She’s a politician, but she still manages to come across as a regular person in a way that the other would-be VPs don’t. Like, I love Elizabeth Warren and I was rooting for her hard during her campaign. But she isn’t a “cool” anything. She has other qualities that Kamala doesn’t have, but her vibe is more of “Hard-ass English teacher who scared the crap out of you when you were in her class, but ten years later you realize she was the best teacher you ever had.”
That’s a good characterization of our next VP. Cool.