Reminds me of a funny story a professor told me. Back in the days of apartheid, someone told a Japanese friend of his that in South Africa, that he'd have the same status as a "white", to which he retorted "Why would I want to be white?"
Relatedly, "Asian" is a category which exists in America a heck of a lot more than it exists in Asia.
(I was helping one of my friends with a grad school application. He got to race, asked me why a school would need to know this -- silly Japanese person, how would we run our racial discrimination departments without sorting you first -- and couldn't find Japanese on the menu so he picked Other. Quote, "The closest I saw was Asian American, but I think that's for Chinese people, right? Whatever, I'm certainly not American.")
I never considered Oriental a pejorative (heck, I called myself Oriental back then) until I was corrected by my American cousin who was taking Asian Studies in uni in the late 80s: "We're called Asians. Oriental is considered offensive."
In the 90s, I was totally baffled by the popularity of the 'Azn' movement.
I don't understand how your anecdote illustrates your point. He looked for Japanese first, then Asian. The problem was the "Asian-American". I assume if there was an "Asian" option he would have picked it.
(Yes, I know that in Japan "Asian" almost always mean "Asia - Japan", but I think a college student wouldn't fail to realize that outside Japan, "Asia" does include Japan.)
This reminds me of the trouble I have with "African-American". I often have no idea where someone's cultural, racial, or national background is, and I believe it would be rude of me to presuppose a particular country. Anyway, the problem usually comes up when I'm trying to describe someone to someone else (physically, I mean). I mean, if I work with three people who are black and 50 who are not, there is an obvious way to narrow down the description. Same as of they had another distinguishing characteristic. If I (a rather white guy) were the odd skin tone out I'd fully expect to be described by it.
I understand the idea that a person is not defined by their skin color. But, really, I'm generally not talking about someone else's background as much as I'm asking a third party if they know them.
More on topic, it would seem that a good artist specifies a particular cultural background for a character if it enhances a story. Otherwise, it is often the case that any cultural baggage is brought by the viewer/reader.
This reminds me of a story that my friend told me from when she was at college.
The daughter of the ambassador from Jamaica was a student at the college, and she was being interviewed by the student newspaper as an interest piece.
The interviewer apparently asked her how she felt being an African-American at the (predominantly white) college.
The interviewer could not fathom why the daughter (being neither African nor American) was upset by the question.
That, and living in a foreign country has pretty much made me give up on the PC-ness that American creates. I'm as white as the Whitey-white white, and I feel that no one could be faulted for telling me otherwise.
Interestingly enough, when I tease my wife about our (half-hungarian, half-japanese) daughter about being part of "Team Whitey," she always responds by saying that our daughter is part of "Team Yellow."
While horribly non-PC in America, it brings into light the amount of power that words like that have, and how they have almost no power if there's no history or culture backing them.
Thinking about it further, I find it interesting that "Team Whitey" sounds perfectly fine and dandy in an English context, while "Team Yellow" seems racially insensitive.
