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Point of note: "Asian" in the US seems to mean "China, Indochina, Japan". In the UK it typically means "Indian subcontinent" (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). (And
by cstross 17y ago
Point of note: "Asian" in the US seems to mean "China, Indochina, Japan". In the UK it typically means "Indian subcontinent" (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). (And black folks in the UK are not "African-American" -- they're more likely to be Anglo-Jamaican, but can also be, well, African. For values of "Africa is a continent the size of both the Americas, with a population of around a billion people, so you need to be more specific.")
Even where the same labels exist, they may be applied to something completely different. And the meaning attached to such labels may differ significantly (something that's insulting or derogatory in one culture may be descriptive in another).
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- J_McQuade 17y agoThat's stung me a few times, actually - when American friends of mine talk about their interest in Asian cinema, there's still a slight mental delay before I realise that they don't mean Bollywood. Also, when I was at university, a black friend of mine went to study for a semester in the USA and he found the amount of times that he was referred to as 'African American' absolutely hilarious. He was born and raised in London and his parents are Caribbean - making him, as you say, neither of those things.
- nandemo 17y agoSo his parents are "African-American" after all. ;-)
- notauser 17y agoI know a woman who self identifies as 'African-American' because she was born and raised in Tanzania. Since she is 5'10" and blond this causes some problems.
- tokenadult 17y agoI know a woman who self identifies as 'African-American' because she was born and raised in Tanzania. If she would be identified as "white" in Tanzania, as appears to be the implication of your post, she doesn't fit the United States definition of "African-American," which is a synonym for "black." http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/858679-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-7-a.html http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/85867...
- dirtbox 17y ago*Anglo-Caribbean. An awful lot of the islands in the West Indies would take great offence to being called Jamaican. Also, West Indies is pretty much an unknown term in the US. Just another example of how complex the notion of race is internationally.