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Comment by yumraj | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why the headline says 'Asian' instead of saying Chinese, since all three researchers were Chinese with ties to China.

As an ethic Indian, I'm kinda offended when all Asians are just lumped together as I believe it promotes general racism and bias against anyone from that continent.

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Funny you say that because in the US, Indians are not considered Asians in practice even though of course South Asia is, well in Asia. I have seen many people argue that Asians only mean East Asians and does not include South Asians. However, the official census lumps all Asians together.

As an American, when I hear Asian I think Chinese/Japanese/Korean.

Despite the fact that I know India is in Asia, I don’t think of people from India as Asians.

Incidentally, Israel is also in Asia, but I don’t consider Israelis to be Asian either.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-continent-is-israel...

I think also the divide between Europe and Asia to be silly since generally continent is defined as: "any of the world's main continuous expanses of land" - and I don't see any dividing body of water between Europe and Asia... What am I missing?

> What am I missing?

The Turkish Straits. Are you referring to the more northern border? I assumed it was the Ural Mountains, but it’s more complicated than that and has an interesting history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundaries_between_the_conti...

I believe you are spreading misinformation here.

The Census Bureau determines ethnicity and race within America for legal purposes (including employment)

Asians are people from 'the far east' 'southeast asia' and 'india'

https://www.census.gov/mso/www/training/pdf/race-ethnicity-o...

BY NO MEANS am I defending this, I believe much of our race 'stuff' is indefensibly stupid and unscientific from biological, historical, and sociological perspectives, and the American idea of "Asian" is one of the worst concepts of all.

It's not misinformation. Colloquially when people in the US say "asian" they are only rarely referring to Indians or Pakistanis or Bangladeshis. They are almost always referring to Chinese or Japanese or Koreans.

The census may use different groupings.

In Germany 'Asians' and 'Indians' are two distinct groups. When we talk about 'Asians' we usually mean Japan/China/Korea/Thailand but never Indians (or even Pakistani).

My theory is that this comes from restaurant culture. There is 'asian food', e.g. 'stuff with rice' and there is 'indian food', e.g. 'stuff with curry'.

Genetically, most Indians are more closely related to Europeans than to East Asians. And East Asians are more closely related to Native Americans than to Indians.

E.g. https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/53636/online-phy...

This is one phylogeny. What is it built on? The problem is individual haplotypes have complex histories of their own which recombine sexually to form diverse mixtures which flow across "ethnic" groups.

Well to be honest those descriptions are vague and not helpful

SE Asia is "souther" than "South Asia" (which is still in the northern hemisphere)

Not specifying the country really sounds like a diversion most of the time (and it's rare that "Asian" could be an useful generalization).

Typically if there is some distinction of asian in US surveys I've encountered, the common categorization is southeast asian vs asian/pacific islander. Which is just as much of a head scratcher of groupings.

Asian in the US includes S. Asia, I think, popularly.

How are Indians not considered “Asians in practice” when they are considered as such by the Census, the authoritative organization that sets the categorization standard?

Because laypeople don't think of those things. The divide in the way people look, the environment of their countries, how they sound, and what they believe, is split in Asia by the Himalayas. Obviously there are many differences between the countries but it's easy to see why conceptually some might group some of them together into 2 large regions. Also Indians in America don't generally refer to themselves as Asians when speaking, so if their goal is to be perceived as Asian, they are not helping themselves.

Colloquially, in America, Asians are identified as having slanty eyes and white skin. Indians have brown skin and are therefore not colloquially referred to as Asians. Instead, they are referred to simply as "Indian".

This is an oversimplification, most Americans will also be quick to categorize darker skinned Southeast Asians as Asian.

Historically most Asians in the US were from East Asia and later SEA so the label tends to evoke those groups. Lacking familiarity, it may also be harder for many Americans to easily discriminate (lol?) between East Indians and other non-white/non-Asian groups.

Still there are plenty of people that do include Indians as "Asian" in the US, it's hardly a universal standard to exclude them as a lot of comments here seem to think.

Colloquailly in the UK it is somewhat of an opposite scenario, if people hear "Asian", they think someone from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh.

In my experience living in the U.S. at least, if someone is referring to someone of Indian origin, they call them Indian, whereas if someone is referring to someone of Korean/Japanese/Chinese origin, they'll call them Asian (unless they know their particular country of origin).

I would expand the Asian designation to include southeast Asians as well (Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, etc). Though maybe that’s just a west coast thing.

Its just the view the English language has consensed on at the ground level. It's not decided intentionally.

The GP is correct. Of course officially Asia has many nations. But colloquially we use 'Asian' to refer to East Asian folks. You're talking about a country that, in many parts, refers to Native Americans as 'Indians' to this day...

For the same reason that Tomatoes not treated as fruits "in practice."

It is the 'Anglo Colonial Atlas of Races' masquerading as "geography". Middle East -- a geographic figment of colonial imagination -- is code word for 'lightly colored sand dwellers'. Asian means 'of the yellow races with strange eyes'.

It's dumb that we call the group "Asian" instead of "East Asian," but there are notable ethnic and cultural similarities that East Asian nations don't share with the rest of Asia. Ditto the Middle East.

I don't think it's automatically bigotry to refer to people this way. "Western European" and "South American" are less controversial examples.

> Cancer center officials have not named any of the five researchers. MD Anderson President Peter Pisters says all are “Asian”;

I believe because that's the official statement.

It’s a direct quote from a statement provided by the institution. Not a choice the reporter made, but they mention that they confirmed most are ethnically Chinese.

The United States Government has official racial categories for individuals, of which "Asian" is one.

Employers and academic institutions are required by law to categorize employees/researchers/students into these racial categories.

Your mystery can be solved by reading to the third paragraph.

> Cancer center officials have not named any of the five researchers. MD Anderson President Peter Pisters says all are “Asian”; Science has confirmed that three are ethnically Chinese.

MD Anderson President Peter Pisters says all [five] are “Asian”; Science has confirmed that three are ethnically Chinese.

Agreed. There's no reason to distrust "Asian researchers"; there's reason to distrust "researchers with ties to China in the political climate of 2019".

Reason=racism?

Totally agree.

As it is, Indian diversity is already lumped together into one nation. No one says European cuisine, European language, European culture etc when referring to something specific.

As a person from India, who lived more than a decade in the USA, I took quite some time to realize the following:

- We are not Asians even though India is in Asia. Asians are those who have the "oriental facial features".

- We are not Indians, because generally native Americans are referred to as Indians, and I realized only later that if I mention "native Americans" when someone refers to them as Indians, can be a little incorrect (politically) based on who says that.

- We are all "South Asians" when a terror attack occurs in developed countries (especially European counties).

- When there's something specifically negative pointed out about India, then it's clearly "Indians" and "India" (this point is limited to celebs and US/Eu media, not the general population that I have come across).

people if USA are used to be called Americans and not "USAians". I guess it's the same attitude towards other countries that leads to such usage of terms.

In the US, Asian = people from eastern Asia. In the UK, Asian = people from southern Asia.

Sure, but even if we continue to abide by this inconsistent terminology, "eastern Asia" is not the same thing as China, so the OP's point still seems relevant.

I'm not endorsing the use of the terminology, nor do I use it, but that has been my experience with others who use it in the US and UK. I know the US Census lumps Indians and Chinese together in one as Asian, but colloquially, I never hear anyone in the US refer to Indians as Asians.

Speaking as someone from the UK, when I say "Asian" I mean East Asian, and when I mean someone from South Asia, I name the specific nationality.

For example, I generally wouldn't refer to someone from India as "Asian".

FWIW, all the UK coverage of the grooming gang scandals refers to the perpetrators as Asian (they are mostly South Asian, and definitely not East Asian).

So you're fine as long as racism is only directed towards races other than your own?

Chinese is a nationality or citizenship status. If the focus were reporting han chinese then it would enter the territory of racism.

Let's go with the term bigotry in response to this throw-away objection.

it obviously depends on the context, but China is homogeneous enough that 'chinese' is often used to mean more than just nationality

Considering China to be a homogeneous entity in any dimension is borne of ignorance. Linguistically, the four largest cities in China (Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chongqing, Beijing) speak "dialects" that range from barely mutually intelligible to not at all. Politically, the region has had a long history of provinces disregarding central rule, rivalry between major power centers, etc. Cultural boundaries have been somewhat muddied in the modern era, but one should not assume that the united front that the CCP presents to the outside world is reflective of internal unity.

Sure, the Han make up 90%+ of the population (and in that sense you could call China homogeneous), but I struggle to say that Han == Han when it comes to the overwhelming diversity of the country.

The only meaningful distinction is between mainland Chinese vs Hong Kongers/Taiwanese/Chinese Diaspora. There's no ignoring the damage done by the Cultural Revolution. The old honor code that used to govern social relations just isn't there anymore. Mainland China is a complete wild west where anything goes. Cheating. Stealing. Stabbing friends in the back.

because india is not in asia, it's in india

Weird jokes aside, I cannot not think asia = china,japan,tibet,koreas,vietnam,laos,thailand ..

In my brain, the rest is ~elsewhere

Yes, “Asian” as used by most Westerners† is the current socially-palatable “Oriental” or “Mongoloid”, but it’s no less lazy, ignorant, annoying and even racist.

Imagine calling Canadians and Mexicans “American” because of the continent.

† If you’re annoyed by being lumped under “Westerner” you might be able to relate.

> Imagine calling Canadians and Mexicans “American” because of the continent.

I've seen "North American" used like that pretty often, actually.

> If you’re annoyed by being lumped under “Westerner” you might be able to relate.

I'm not. Should I be? It makes sense.

I agree that "Asian" doesn't make sense in the way the West tends to use it. "East Asian" is somewhat better, though still not 100% geographically accurate. But then "Westerner" isn't really accurate either; it's just the best commonly-accepted term for a useful concept.

Is your position really that it’s unacceptable to refer to some subset of people who trace their recent ancestry to Asia as Asians? Do you think it’s unacceptable to refer to people of recent European ancestry as Europeans?

What if I preferentially self-identify as "Westerner"?

I think it is an Americansim, the British do not generally use "Asian" with that specific connotation.

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