From “AAPI” (“Asian Pacific Islander”), to “APIDA” (“Asian Pacific Islander and Desi American”), “APISA” (“Asian Pacific Islander and South Asian”), and now the Biden presidential campaign put out the acronym “AANHPI” (”Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander). The terminology surrounding Asian identification has been in a constant state of change. Having labels put upon any group can lead to a rift in the way that people personally identify themselves and can start to create a struggle between that and what other people want you to be.
Students at USC had different opinions about this topic and expressed distinct thoughts about how they identify themselves.
“I think that all of the changes when it comes to the actual abbreviation just increases the work that’s put on the community itself to educate other people about what is apparently right or what is apparently wrong,” said Sreenidhi Boopathi, a USC senior, who identifies as Tamil under the Indian identity. “There’s so many different types of Asian and it’s just that up until now I feel like people have just conflicted the Asian identity with the East Asian identity, leading to the additions and adding ‘PI’ and adding ‘SA’ and etc.”
The Asian identity is much more than just one region or one ethnicity. But, it becomes difficult for people to remember that when the term essentially lumps everyone from every Asian country into one small abbreviation.
“In the Asian community, I think we’re all trying to figure out what’s the best way to label things and we don’t even have a consensus, so when someone else that’s not even part of the community is just trying to say ‘oh well no, we can just say this or say this,’ and then its constantly changing, you just never know what to think,” said Midori Jenkins, a USC graduate student, who identifies as both Japanese and Black. “I think it makes the conversation really difficult because it’s…
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