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Asian American Studies

Who is Asian American?

Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants).

Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau denotes a racial category that includes people with origins or ancestry from 

  • East Asia,
  •  South Asia,
  •  Southeast Asia,
  • Central Asia
    It excludes people with ethnic origins from West Asia, who were historically classified as 'white' and will be categorized as Middle Eastern Americans starting from the 2030 census. Central Asian ancestries (including Afghan, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek) were previously not included in any racial category but have been designated as "Asian" as of 2024.

The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Thai, and Other Asian".  In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the US population.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Americans) accessed June 23, 2025

Encyclopedia of Japanese American internment 
Call Number: D769.8.A6 E64 2013

 

The internment of Japanese Americans was a violation of the Constitution and its guarantee of equal protection under the lawâ€"yet it was authorized by a presidential order, given substance by an act of Congress, and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Japanese internment is a topic that we as Americans cannot afford to forget or be ignorant of. This work spotlights an important subject that is often only described in a cursory fashion in general textbooks. It provides a comprehensive, accessible treatment of the events of Japanese American internment that includes topical, event, and biography

 

Last Updated: Sep 2, 2025 11:07 AM