My boss asked me, “Wait…which Indian?”
Interruption of anecdote to include some self-centered “ethnic terminology” musings: As a scientist, I embrace and encourage curiosity. As the sole yellow face in a sea of white (sometimes), I take umbrage at anachronistic assumptions that I must be from Asia simply because I appear to be of Asian descent.
Recently, a girl asked me three times in 30 seconds where I was from, appending “originally” to her question the third time after receiving the same response twice. It’s 2010. You can’t assume that only black or white people can be from Cleveland. Or, you can. You just ought not to. I also ought not to end my sentence with a preposition. Perhaps I’ll end this paragraph with a proposition. Naw. Californians have ended any hope of climbing out of deficit in this decade with propositions. Har har I’m so political. But, this stream of consciousness is digressing from what my original sidebar intended: to discuss ethnic terms and my personal preferences.
- What’s your ethnicity? This is a straightforward question. It’ll elicit a straightforward response from me. This is not to be confused with, “What’s your nationality?” My nationality is American. NB: there are those who have multiple ethnicities. As far as I know, I just have one.
- Asian: Did you know that Asia is a big continent? Not having been alive for most of the 1980s, I’m not quite sure when it became politically incorrect to refer to people (not just rugs) as “Oriental,” but I find that people often have trouble specifying what kind of Asian because we’re no longer supposed to use “Oriental.” East Asian is fine. It is also helpful to remember that not all “brown” people are Indian, and therefore, South Asian is a good term to use.
- Black: Because this is not my own race, I will happily defer to someone who is black if s/he has a preference, but in general, I like black. African-American is a bit cumbersome to me, and I’m not sure why we must exist in a hyphenated society. (Also, I fully acknowledge that we don’t exist in a color-blind society; hence, my POST ON RACIAL TERMINOLOGY.) Pardon me for this truism, but aren’t all Americans…well, American? If someone strongly identifies with the African continent, then sure, s/he is an African-American. For many others, that tie is murkier and for more distant.
- White: I don’t like Caucasian. Most of these people are not from the Caucasus Mountains. And yes, so long as we don’t live in a color-blind society, color is still one of the traits we use to identify people. Some people might identify with one particular country more than others, but for the same reasons I think African-American is cumbersome, I don’t think it’s necessary to refer to people as European-American. And, again, I think that we use these terms to address color, not culture or country of origin.
- American Indian: I once read that this term is more popular than “Native American” among the communities who identify themselves as such, and so it is the term I use, again deferring to someone else if s/he prefers a different self-identifier.
That is the general theme here–I am the foremost expert on myself, certainly, but not on someone else, so how that person names him or herself is how I will follow. During the World Cup, there was talk of how Cote d’Ivoire wants to be known as Cote d’Ivoire, not Ivory Coast. Sure, one is a direct translation of the other, but if the nation prefers a particular version, who am I to impose my language on their identity? (The who’s and why’s of their identity tying into a European language is a topic I am ill-equipped to discuss at this juncture.)
We now resume our regularly scheduled anecdote.
My boss jokingly bemoaned the fact that no one will be in lab next week, then admitted that he also wouldn’t be in lab during Thanksgiving. I reassured him that I won’t be leaving until Wednesday night, at which point he asked where I’d be going.
“Kentucky, for an Indian Thanksgiving!”
“Uh, what kind of Indian?” he asked.
I explained that Varsha (hi, Varsh!) would be in Kentucky because her parents had moved there recently, so I was getting adopted for Thanksgiving. Woohoo! Indian as in South Asian 
