In the US, I think people often use “Asian” to euphemistically refer to people they used to call Orientals. The latter term is considered problematic. The new term hasn’t improved their treatment, though.
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In Britain they call people from India Asians all the time. Immigrants from the Indian subcontinent are the biggest nonwhite group, and that’s the word they are known by.
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Found this definition by UN sub-dividing Asia into five(six) sub-regions[1], containing nations as Kazakhstan, China, Philippines, India, Saudi Arabia(, Russia) to name one from each.
I think the "India" prefix in the terminology you mentioned and the fact that euphemistic American "Asian" including only East/Sountheast Asians indicate that there is a widely recognized and practical distinction between the groups, which also aligns with the UN definition, despite both partly sharing the literal expression.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme_for_A...
> In the US, I think people often use “Asian” to euphemistically refer to people they used to call Orientals.
I wonder why that is; while at the same time, Kamala Harris is widely considered the first Asian American Vice President, because her mother is a Tamil American (as am I).