Many Americans don't do well in Geography. Lack of interest, it seems.
For Pete's sake, I'm Philippine-born Filipino-American and know we're Southeast Asians, due to PH Geography classes & our news-reporters' casual mentions of Manila's membership to our regional-block A. S. E. A. N. (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), but so many U. S.-born Filipino-Americans actually think we're Oceanian ("Pacific Islander" in American terms), and NOT even remotely Asian.
Apparently, many Americans also think Africa is a country. 🤣 I've also encountered some online who think China, Japan, and Korea are all the same.
Apparently, war & Washington's involvement are needed to make Americans learn where countries are, hence the saying "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." Abominable & blasphemous in my opinion, but … there seems to be truth to it. (Replace "God's" with "Satan's" or "Washington's" or something else, and I'd completely agree!)
People used to use the term "oriental" for Southeast Asians. The politically correct crowd thought that "oriental" was derogatory, so they changed it to "Asian". It still refers to the same people in SE Asia. Geographically it's less correct than before, but they thought it was more politically correct.
This was around the same time that political correctness itself started - I think in the late 70s - early 80s. It was around the same time that more gender neutral and other politically correct words became common - waitress became server - stewardess became flight attendant, black became African American, draftsman became drafter, Indian became Native American (this one made the most sense), and Oriental became Asian.
Back then, if someone said "Indian" it was usually understood from the context what the speaker meant. If there was any confusion, people would just ask "Do you mean Indian Indians or American Indians?".
@DavidRaul You might have gotten that from old movies or something. In the movies they were sometimes derogatorily called "redskins" or something similar. They were not called that in my day.
The thing is that the complexion of many natives was not dark or reddish. The natives came from different parts of Asia and tended to settle in different parts of the Americas. Like the natives in the far north of N America and most of the population of Greenland are light skinned. They were light skinned in the parts of Asia they came from also.
The natives in the southwest US do tend to have a red color. But in my life the term "red" was not used, at least that I ever heard.
@DavidRaul Well there are a lot of people. There will be some people who say just about anything. But it wasn't widespread and I don't remember hearing it.
Collectively, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are called a "subcontinent," they have historically been rather isolated from the rest of Asia, and the natives of those countries look quite distinct from Eastern Asians.
It's still weird to me that Americans don't consider them Asians given that Asia literally includes Russia, Turkey, Armenia etc, all countries with the border between Europe and Asia crossing through their territory... Heck, there's even some Egyptians living in Asia, they're literally native Egyptians and native Asians at the same time. While I admit that we Europeans don't usually have people from the middle east in mind when talking about Asians since the middle east is a part of Asia that kind of sticks out to the west a bit compared to the usual border at the Ural mountains and so close to us in Europe that it's useful for us to specify them more when talking about them in particular, anything east of the Caspian sea is 100% Asian regardless of who it is... As the border between Europe and Asia literally is hugging the northwestern shore of that sea... No one where I live would bat an eye at the stans all being Asian...
I mean, sure there's differences between the Asian regions, just like with other continents... But that doesn't disqualify them from the continent.
It is the fucking American education system that brings up "ll"educated and "mis" educated morons. Like someone pointed out, you will not see that in UK, for instance.
Problem comes when as a brown person you are expected to say NO when asked if you are Asian.
By definition anyone from the continent of Asia is Asian. In the UK when someone says Asian, its desi people because thats the part of Asia where most people migrated from to the UK. Even in the grocery stores, you'll find desi food in the Asian aisle. You'll be called Asian in the UK.
Ariel Sharon, yes, Putin, no. Putin was born in St Petersburg, west of the Ural mountains, and therefore in Europe. Middle Easterns most definitely are Asians, they're just specified more by Europeans because the middle east is a part of Asia sticking out further west then the rest of the continent making them neighbours of us Europeans and influential in what's going on even in western Europe.
Interesting, in that case he could be either or, as Georgia also straddles the border between the continents. The long history of Christianity in the Caucasus is part of why the region is considered a part of Europe by some I think...
No particular reason. There are other similar situations. For example, why aren't Brazilians called Americans, they're in South America? And why are USA residents called Americans, there are many other countries in North and South America?
As far as I know, Indians do refer to themselves as Asian. They are in the southern part of Asia and that also includes Pakistan, Bengladesh, Sri Lanka and some others southern Asian countries.
In the UK they are. In the UK when you say Asian it refers to South Asians. I guess it might be the case here because thats the part of Asia where most immigrants came to the UK.
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