Back in Pimary School they taught us that India is a part of that huge continent called Asia. I thereby had the impression that Indians are Asians. Seems kind of simple and direct doesn't it? India is a part of Asia; therefore all that is a part of India is a part of Asia; and thus follows the conclusion.
Having a notion like that, I emphatically and enthusiastically became a member of the "Asian Students Association" at the University when I found that there was one. But then when I checked out their website, something struck me as unusual. All the members of the community (except me) seemed to be of Chinese, Korean or Japanese descent. There was not a single member either from South Asia or from the Middle East; despite the presence of a significant number of students from these regions. I subsequently came to know that in these parts, "Asian" refers specifically to East Asians; it may or may not include South East Asians (it does not, according to my Chinese Canadian friend), but it definitely does not include South Asians like us.
This is what wikipedia has to say:
" In Canada, Asian refers to people from the Far East, Southeast Asia, South Asia and West Asia. Like the United States, in Canada the term Asian generally refers to the East Asian Canadians since they were the first Asian immigrant groups into Canada."
So as far as regular, unofficial use of the term is concerned, the more Chinese (or Mongoloid) features you have, the more Asian you are. But what are we then? It turns out that the common word for describing all South Asians apparently is the rustic-sounding "Desi" or the rather racist "Brown". The word Brown though, is the most ridiculous word to refer to South Asians, and that's not only because of its racist tone. A lot of North Indians and Pakistanis are as fair-skinned as Europeans while some Indians are as dark as Africans. The word Desi is better, but it doesn't make much of a sense either, because it sounds sort of "uncool", and in Hindi it simply means "of or belonging to the country". South Asian, probably is the best phrase and makes perfect sense; but that brings us to something similar to where we begun; as we face the question, "Are South Asians not Asians?"
Rather confusing, isn' it?
