I Resent The Asian Category

This irritates me. On an average (American) questionnaire they have a standard race category. I inevitably click the Asian category. This annoys me because A) I’m not Chinese and B) Asian includes over 40% of the world’s population. That click box amalgamates China and India (and everybody else) into one category based on some outdated Orientalism. I don’t mind being grouped with India demographically as we are both brown and enjoy curry. However, I don’t like being grouped with China, which is what Asian generally ‘means’ in the US. At least break Asian into ‘Paki’ and ‘Chink’ or something.

10 Comments

  1. in the UK , Asian mean Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, SL .. all things nice and brown

    while Chinese, Korean, Japanese and like are Oriental

  2. the whole need to categorise annoys me, it implies that we’re inherently different to each other by virtue of where we were born…

  3. It’s very true that Asian in the UK is taken as brown without being Far Eastern.

    And, I understand your frustration but it’s not that different to all white people being grouped together too, which is the case in your example.

  4. If there is white, and then there is black, why not brown and yellow too! after all it is all about skin color.

  6. Indi,

    I think you are the perfect modern Asian.

  7. I say Indi, once a WOG, always a WOG (Worthy Oriental Gentlemen – a sobriquet developed at the British East India trading company back in the day. NOT meant in respect).

    They have Black or African American (the difference eludes me), so why not have Brown or South Asian?

  8. could this be because they came to our countries without visa and over stayed their welcome for more than 400 years. Of course the poms are far more “familiar” with pakis, us and all things brown !!!!

  9. WOG is a Westernised Oriental Gentleman

    White is too wide a category, the Germans are different to the French and both are different to a Canadian.

    Its a choice between listing the 160 odd countries in the UN or a few broad categories.

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