They have Muslim names, all but one. Why does Britain call them “Asians”?
Most folks from Asia in Britain are from South Asia—India or Pakistan. In proper British usage, one talks about “East Asians” (meaning Chinese, Japanese or Koreans) and “South Asians” (meaning Indian or Pakistani or Sri Lankan or. . .), but, the latter being far more common in Britain, “South Asian” gets shortened to “Asian” in common usage, esp. in news headlines.
(Despite only having spent a total of four weeks in the U.K. in my entire life, I’m used to British usage because I’ve taken to reading the British press. I was about a year ahead of Rush, who now quoted The Telegraph fairly often. And lots of FReepers have taken up the practice, since you can get real news that way.)
This is a dialectical difference between Britain and the US.
In England, "Asian" is always used to refer to people we would call "South Asian": Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, etc.
Persons we would call "Asian" in the USA are always called "Oriental" in Britain.
The Brits are actually geographically correct, and less politically correct then the US press.
Pakistan and India are located in Asia. They typically refer to the people the US media refers to as "Asian" and come from the region around Japan, China, and the "far East" as "Oriental."
The PC thought process in the American media is so pervasive, I'll never forget an article I read that referred to a Black from Africa (who had never actually been to America) as an "African American African!"
Mark