Asian people

Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.

Central Asia

 * for historical background see Mawarannahr

Native ethnic groups of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan self-identify themselves as Asian. They are also recognized as Asian by Russians and Chinese.

This self-identification is based phenotypically, and on cultural differences from Russians, as these countries used to be parts of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and therefore have significant Russian populations. Another reason for such self-identification is patriotic: "the native people of the Center of Asia - are undoubtedly Asians".

Anglophone Africa and Caribbean
In parts of anglophone Africa, especially East Africa and South Africa, and in parts of the Anglophone Caribbean, the term "Asian" is more commonly associated with people of South Asian origin, particularly Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans.

Australia
Notably, the Australian Census includes Central Asia, a region that is often considered to be part of the Greater Middle East. The Australian Census includes four regions of Asia in its official definition. Defined by the 2006–2011 Australian Census, three broad groups have the word Asian included in their name: Central and Southern Asian, South-East Asian and North-East Asian. Russians are classified as Southern and Eastern Europeans while Middle Easterners are classified as North African and Middle Easterners.

Canada
The Canadian Census' list of Visible Minorities includes "West Asian", "South Asian" and "Southeast Asian". The Canadian government uses "West Asian" in its statistics; however people from the Arab countries are counted in a separate "Arab" category.

New Zealand
New Zealand's census undertaken by Statistics New Zealand defines the Asian to include people of Chinese, Indian, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan, Cambodian and Thai ancestries. In less formal contexts, the term Asian often does not include South Asian people.

Norway
Statistics Norway considers people of Asian background to be people from all Asian countries.

United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the term "Asian" is more commonly associated with people of South Asian origin, particularly Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans. The UK usage of the term "Asian" is reflected in the "ethnic group" section of UK census forms, which treat "Asian" and "Chinese" as separate (see British Asian). Most respondents to the UK 2001 Census of non-Chinese East Asian and Southeast Asian descent chose to write-in their ethnicity in the "Other Ethnic Group" category rather than the "Other Asian" category, reflecting the association of the word Asian in the UK with South Asian. Despite there being a strong presence of East Asians in the United Kingdom there are considerably more South Asians, for example the 2001 Census recorded 1.05 million people of Indian origin and 247,000 of Chinese origin in the UK. Peter J. Aspinall of the Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, recommends privileging the term "South Asian" over the term "Asian", since the term "Asian" is a "contested term".

United States
In 1968, an Asian activist conference decided on favoring the name "Asian American" over the competing terms: "yellow", "Mongolian", "Asiatic" and "Oriental", since the Filipinos at the meeting thought they were "brown" rather than "yellow" and the conference thought the term "Oriental" was Eurocentric, since they originate from lands "east" only from Europe's standpoint and, since the term "Oriental" suggested to them "passivity".

Earlier Census forms from 1980 and prior listed particular Asian ancestries as separate groups along with White and Black or Negro. Previously, Asian Americans were classified as "other". But the 1980 Census marked the first general analyses of Asians as a group, combining several individual ancestry groups into "Asian or Pacific Islander." By the 1990 Census, Asian or Pacific Islander (API) was included as an explicit category, although respondents had to select one particular ancestry.



The 2000 and 2010 U.S. Census Bureau definition of the Asian "race" includes those who originate from the original peoples of the "Far East", "Southeast Asia" and the "Indian subcontinent".

In 1930 and 1940, Indian Americans were identified as a separate race, Hindu, and in 1950 and 1960 they were racially classified as Other Race, and then in 1970 they were classified as White. Since 1980, Indians and all other South Asians have been classified as part of the Asian race. Sociologist Madhulika Khandelwal described how "....as a result of activism, South Asians came to be included as 'Asians' in the census only in the 80's. Prior to that many South Asians had been checking 'Caucasian' or 'Other'."

Respondents can also report their specific ancestry, e.g.: Okinawan, etc. Someone reporting these ancestries but no race would be classified as "Asian". Unlike South Asians, Middle Eastern Americans and Central Asian Americans have not lobbied to be included as Asians by the U.S. Census Board.

In normal American usage Asian does not refer to the people from the Pacific Islands who are usually called Pacific Islanders. The term "Asians and Pacific Islanders" or "Asia/Pacific" was used on the 1990 US Census.

However, in the 2000 US Census, the Asian or Pacific Islander category was separated into two categories, "Asian" and "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander".

Keith Lowe
Dr. Keith Lowe, race-relations expert for the Canadian government, claims that Asian people refer to Central, South, Southeast and East Asians.

Masatoshi Nei
In 1993, Masatoshi Nei (Japanese:根井正利), Professor of Biology at Pennsylvania State University, said, based on genetic evidence, that "Mongoloids" a term in which he included the "Evens", "Buryat", "Hui", "Mongolian", "Tibetan", "Japanese", "Ainu", "Northern Chinese", "Korean", "Dong", "Zhuang", "Southern Chinese", "Taiwanese aborigines", "Thai", "Indonesian" and "Filipino" peoples were contained within a larger genetic grouping he called either the "Greater Asians" or "Greater Mongoloids" in which he also included "Pacific Islanders" and "Australopapuans". In the "Australopapuan" grouping, Nei included "Dravidians", "Andamanese", "Australian", "Papuan" and "Philippine Negritos".

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
In 1994, geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford University divided a "principal coordinant" map of "42 Asian populations" into three groupings: "Asian Caucasoids", "Northeast and East Asian" and "Southeast Asian". The ethnic groups Cavalli-Sforza said were in the "Asian Caucasoids" cluster were the "Armenian", "Arabian", "Assyrian", "Lebanese", "Bedouin", "Jordanian", "E. Iranian", "W. Iranian", "Uzbek", "N. Turkic", "Turkish Caucasoid", "Turkmen", "Brahman", "Central Indian", "E. Indian", "S. Indian", "N. Dravidian", "Central Dravidian", "S. Dravidian" and "Sri Lankan". The ethnic groups Cavalli-Sforza said were in the "Northeast and East Asian" cluster were the "Koryak", "Chukchi", "Reindeer Chukchi", "Nganasan" "Samoyed", "N. Tungus", "Nentsy" "N. Chinese", "Tibetan", "Bhutanese", "Ainu", "Mongol", "Japanese" and "Korean". The ethnic groups Cavalli-Sforza said were in the "Southeast Asian" cluster were "Indonesian", "Malaysian", "Taiwan aborigines", "Viet Muong", "Thai", "Philippine", "S. Chinese", "Balinese" and "Gurkha".

Moreover, Cavalli-Sforza said there is an "approximate boundary" between "Caucasoids" and "Mongoloids" from the "Urals" to "the eastern part of India". Along this boundary there has been "hybridization", causing a "Caucasoid-Mongoloid gradient". Likewise, Cavalli-Sforza said there is a "separation between northern and southern Mongoloids" "starting from Southeast Asia".



Marta Mirazon Lahr
Dr. Marta Mirazon Lahr of the Department of Biological Anthropology at Cambridge University said "all" "Asian populations" are "grouped under the name Mongoloid".

Michael Bamshad
Michael Bamshad et al. of the Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah, found that "107 sub-Saharan African, 67 East Asian and 81 Western European" individuals genetically clustered with "ancestry from a single population" at levels of "almost 100%", but among "263 individuals from South India" the "proportion of ancestry shared with Europeans and Asians varies widely".

Karen T. Taylor
Karen T. Taylor forensic art professor at the FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, said that the term "Asian-derived" is a modern-day euphemism for the "Mongoloid race" and it includes "Native Americans" and "various Asian groups".

Eugénia Maria Guedes Pinto Antunes da Cunha
Eugénia Maria Guedes Pinto Antunes da Cunha of the Department of Anthropology, University of Coimbra, Portugal, said there has been a modern trend in "most of the forensic anthropology literature" to "rename" the term "Mongoloid", a term in which she includes the "North American Indian", with the term "Asian" or "Asiatic". Antunes da Cunha said that, even though the "terminology" has changed, the "underlying assumptions are the same".

Sandra Soo-Jin Lee
Sandra Soo-Jin Lee (Korean:이수진) of the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University, United States of America, said that the reasoning behind "Asian" being a "race" as defined by the US Census is "difficult to determine" because it includes "South Asians".

Konstantinos Moraitis
Konstantinos Moraitis (Greek:Κωνσταντίνος Μωραΐτης) of the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology School of Medicine, University of Athens, Greece, said that the "Asian" group which he also refers to as the "Mongoloid" group includes both "Far East" and "Native American" people.

Matt Cartmill
Matt Cartmill of the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, United States, said "geography has little to do with the race concept in its actual application", since "Asian individuals [can be] born in the same geographical region" as other races.

Masniari Novita
Masniari Novita of the Biomedical Department of Jember University, Jember, Indonesia, said "Asiatics" are part of the "Mongoloid" race while "Asians from the Indian Subcontinent" are part of the "Caucasian" race.

Willett Enos Rotzell
Willett Enos Rotzell professor of Botany and Zoology at the Hahnemann Medical College used the term "Asian" "race" to refer to the race he alternatively called the "Yellow or Mongolian race".

Eduardas Valaitas
Dr. Eduardas Valaitas of DNA Tribes said the "genetic differences" between peoples "traditionally identified" as "Asian" and other "racial group[s]" is "great enough" to provide a "rough estimate" of "percentage membership" in the "Asian" "racial group". However, Valaitas said this does not apply to the "Subcontinental Indian" and "Samoan" who have "some percentage" of "American Indian, European, East Asian and Sub-Saharan Africa".

Subraces

 * See Also: Mongoloid subraces

Willett Enos Rotzell professor of Botany and Zoology at the Hahnemann Medical College said the "Asian" "race" has two subraces: the "Sinitic" and "Sibiric". Rotzell said the "Sinitic" subrace extends from "China" to "Farther India", including "Malaysia", "Australasia" and "Polynesia", and the subrace includes such peoples as the "Chinese" and "Thibetans". Rotzell said the "Sibiric" subrace extends north of the "Altai Mountains" and "Caspian and Black Seas" from the "Pacific to Atlantic Ocean", including such peoples as the "Tunguses", "Kalmucks", "Tartars", "Turks", "Yakuts", "Turkomans", "Nogaians", "Kirghiz", "Finns", "Lapps", "Chukchis", "Giliaks", "Aleutians" and "Ainos".

Physical features

 * See also: Mongoloid features



Sandy Sangrigoli et al. of the Laboratoire Cognition et Développement, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, used adults of Korean origin adopted by white families to test whether they were able to distinguish "Caucasian" faces at the level of a control group of French people who were shown to be better at distinguishing "Caucasian faces" than "Asiatic faces". Sangrigoli found the Korean adoptees mirrored the control group by showing greater "recognition" of "Caucasian" than "Asian faces", indicating the "other-race effect" of "face recognition" remains "plastic" in "childhood".

Willett Enos Rotzell professor of Botany and Zoology at the Hahnemann Medical College said the "Asian" "race" has skin color ranging from a "yellowish tint" to an "olive shade", with "black and "coarse" hair with a "circular" cross section, an "absent" or "scanty" "beard", a "brachycephalic" skull, "prominent" "cheek bones" and a "broad" face. Rotzell said the "Asian" "race" has its "original home" in "Asia".

Konstantinos Moraitis (Greek:Κωνσταντίνος Μωραΐτης) of the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology School of Medicine, University of Athens, Greece, said the "Asian" is distinguished by a "flat face", "rounded orbits", "pronounced zygomatics" and an intermediate "nasal aperture and spine".

Asian fat distribution
Qing He et al. of the of the Obesity Research Center at Columbia University did a study on "fat distribution" of "358 prepubertal children" and found that "Asians" had less "gynoid" fat than "African Americans" and more relative "trunk" fat than "Caucasians", but less relative "extremity" fat than "Caucasians".

Victor H.H. Goh (Chinese:吴) et al. of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, National University of Singapore, did a study that found that the World Health Organization's obesity cut off based on body mass index misclassified the true obese in an "Asian population" by labeling 3.76 times more men and 1.64 times more women as obese than would actually be obese.

Asian noses
Jeffrey Min Ahn (Korean:안민) professor at the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University, said that the "typical Asian nose" has "a broad low dorsum, decreased tip projection, thick, lobular skin, wide lobule, abundant subcutaneous fatty tissue, alar flaring, a retracted columella, and a small osteocartilaginous framework."

Eun-Sang Dhong (Korean:동은상) of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Korea University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea, measured "52 alar cartiliges" of "26 Koreans" and concluded that the "alar cartiliges" in "Asians" is not much smaller than "whites".

Kyung-Wook Chun (Korean:전경욱) et al. of the Department of Plastic Surgery, Korea University College of Medicine, Korea, found using 20 cadavers that in "Asian noses" the size of the "alar lobule" is mainly due to the size of the "dilator naris anterior muscle", the "dilator naris posterior muscle" and the "thickness of the external skin" rather than due to "vestibular skin".

Asian eyes
Sang-Ki Jeong (Korean:정상기) et al. of Chonnam University, Kwangju, Korea, using both "Asian" and "Caucasian" "cadavers" as well as "four healthy young Korean men" found "Asian eyelids" whether "Asian single eyelids" or "Asian double eyelids" had more fat in them than in "Caucasians". Jeong et al. found that the cause of the "Asian single eyelid" was that "the orbital septum fuses to the levator aponeurosis at variable distances below the superior tarsal border; (2) preaponeurotic fat pad protusion and a thick subcutaneous fat layer prevent levator fibers from extending toward the skin near the superior tarsal border; and (3) the primary insertion of the levator aponeurosis into the orbicularis muscle and into the upper eyelid skin occurs closer to the eyelid margin in Asians."

Dae-Hwan Park (Korean:박대환) et al. of the Catholic University of Daegu, Gyeongsan, South Korea, used 498 "Asians" to study Asian eyes wherein he determined that in Asians the greatest growth of the "vertical dimension of the palpebral fissure", "intercanthal distance" and "the horizontal dimension of the palpebral fissure" were between "10 to 13 years" old, "14 to 16 years" old and "17 to 19 years" old respectively.

Wee-Kiak Lim (Chinese:林伟杰) of the Singapore National Eye Centre found that the "Asian lower eyelid differs from its non-Asian counterpart" by having "no consistent fusion between the capsulopalpebral fascia and the orbital septum inferior to the inferior tarsal border" and "no extension of the capsulopalpebral fascia".

Asian teeth
George Richard Scott, physical anthropologist at the University of Nevada, said some East Asians (in particular, Han Chinese and some Japanese), as well as Native Americans, have a distinctive dental pattern known as Sinodonty, where, among other features, the upper first two incisors are not aligned with the other teeth, but are rotated a few degrees inward and are shovel-shaped.