Jamyang Norbu
A month or so ago, Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was “exposed” by the New York Times for identifying as both “Black” and “Asian” on his Columbia University application form, much to the indignation of his opponents, Mayor Eric Adams et al.
Most US official forms require racial and ethnic identification. This is perhaps done for justifiable bureaucratic reasons, but I personally find this requirement problematic because it has just one category—”Asian”—for the many thousands of distinct ethnic identities from that incredibly vast, complex, and most diverse continent on the planet. More problematically, because Chinese Americans represent the largest Asian-origin group in the U.S., they tend to dominate or “hegemonize” (to use a standard Chinese Communist Party term) the “Asian” category. Just Google “Asian comedians,” and what shows up are primarily Chinese stand-ups, with little mention of Indian, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese performers in the mix.
So I decided long ago to ignore that “Asian” category and write in “High Asia” to provide officialdom with my ethnic and geographic identity. I am not doing this out of pique, but to propose a broader, more sensible division of Asians—not by nationalities but by ethnic and geographic categories that are already in place and commonly used. For instance:
South Asian: Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans
Central Asian: East Turkestan (Xinjiang), Mongolia, Manchuria, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
East Asian: China, Taiwan
Southeast Asian: The 11 nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor, and Vietnam
Northeast Asian: Japan, Korea
High Asian: The Himalayan region and Tibetan plateau, based on altitude (generally over 10,000 feet). This would include Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Tibet. While southern Nepal consists of lowlands bordering India, Nepal regards itself as a Himalayan—and hence High Asian—nation.
I encourage everyone from these regions not to use the overly broad category “Asian” in official documents, but instead to write in one of the more pertinent and accurate categories listed above.
Postscript: I run a very modest research library in a Jackson Heights (NYC) basement, called High Asia Research Center, which you are welcome to visit. Check out www.highasia.org
