| Chapter 2: | Asian American Identity: A Review |
For instance, we may take the example of the aforementioned individual of Indonesian descent. This individual’s racial categorization in the United States is Asian or Asian American, whereas her ethnic-specific categorization would be Indonesian. This ethnic-specific categorization, within the actual Asian racial category, varies depending on the nation that the individual has decided to immigrate to. For example, in Britain, the ethnic-specific distinctions used to classify or differentiate between Asian ethnic-specific groups are quite different from those used in the United States. In this context, individuals from India are referred to interchangeably as “Indians” or “African-Asian Hindus” (Dorsett, 1998). However, these same individuals (of East Indian descent) are categorized as “Indian” or “South Asian” in the American context (although they are also broadly categorized as Asian under the rubric used in the United States Census). These examples demonstrate the fluidity of ethnic-specific identity and how these identities might vary depending on the context of the host country (e.g., The United Kingdom vs. the United States).
A secondary point of clarification is that these shifting identities are not only context-dependent but also time-dependent. For example, before 1947 the ethnic-specific groups categorized as Bangladeshis, Indians, and Pakistanis would have all been considered East Indians in the American context. However, after the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, and the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, these groups once all part of the larger subcontinent of India became their own separate nations with their own linguistic, religious, and cultural practices that distinguish them from one another (Heitzman & Worden, 1989).