In the month of May we take time to reflect and celebrate the important role that Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) have played in our shared history.
By the 1980s, the U.S. Census Bureau grouped persons of Asian ancestry and created the category “Asian and Pacific Islander” (API). In 2000, the API category was separated into “Asian Americans” and “Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders” (NHOPI). The Federal Government defines “Asian American” to include persons having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” includes persons having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
The term “Asian American” also pushed back against the usage of the Euro-centric term “Oriental” to refer to Asians in the United States, which holds racist and colonialist connotations. This episode from the PBS history show “Origin of Everything” further explains why the word “Oriental” is no longer used. Asian Americans claiming the words to describe themselves went hand-in-hand with being empowered to continue supporting civil rights efforts.
South Asia: Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Indian, Maldivians, Nepali, Pakistani, Sri Lankan.
West Asia is typically referred to as the Middle East. Geographically, it includes the countries of Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey (straddles Europe and Asia), United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
