Ephraim said:
At the risk of repeating myself, I sort of think that Americans misuse the term “Asian.” We generally talk about Asians as people from East-Asia or people whose ancestry can be traced to East-Asia. This is flawed because 1) it ignores the Middle East, Russia, and South Asia and 2) it does not distinguish between those who were raised in Asia and those whose family originated in Asia. The last thing I want to do is insult a bunch of people (sure, sure) but I think it is wrong to refer to someone who was born and raised in the United States as Asian. A good example is Michelle Malkin, an American journalist whose parents hail from the Philippines. Whenever someone calls her “Asian” she is quick to point out that she is not Asian, but rather, American. She is no more Asian than I am European.
In short: Master Roshi is the most awesome character ever.
If you want to be politically correct, we should start referring to ourselves as North American because there’s another continent that contains “America” in it. If you don’t want to call East Asians “Asian,” which is the general use in American vernacular (possibly in other countries, too, but I’m not very familiar with that), then it’s incorrect to call yourself American. Even though the rest of the world uses the term to describe someone from or something related to the United States, it excludes Canada, Mexico, and all of South America.
In the case of the word “Asian,” countries found in western Asia, e.g. the Middle East, are not incorrect if they wish to call themselves Asian. BUT, like I mentioned earlier, they generally don’t and they refer to themselves as a descendant of whatever country they came from, or a subregion. We don’t call Mexicans or Canadians “American” although they technically are. They’re Mexicans and Canadians. People from Peru are Peruvians. They could call themselves Americans — just like YouWinGameOver can call himself Asian — but they don’t.
I don’t think people really talk about that because “American” has already been around for a few centuries already whereas the American usage (at least) of “Asian” is relatively new (I read that it became associated with Chinese and Japanese because they were the first Asian immigrants in the U.S.).