Haven´t read the book yet, but I would guess that “asians” are a joint term for north-east and south-east asians (I:e. turks and arabs are caucasians, not “asians”).
There is certainly a lot of diversity within every such “racial category”, but we are facing a problem of informational economy here with no fixed categories.
I realize you are probably right. Asians in this context are what we used to call Orientals, before the term became for some reason derogatory. Which is very odd, since all it means is “Easterners,” which is an indisputably accurate term.
My beef is that “Asian” not only is an imprecise term, it doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere even in the Anglosphere.
In US “Asian” means the north and south east Asians you described. In UK and I believe Oz “Asian” means South Asians from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
I haven’t read the article yet,but globelamp is right. I was always told that there were only 3 races, caucasian, negro and oriental (Native Americans and Aborigines would be oriental in that system I think).
Not too too long ago on another thread here someone said there are something like 7 races,but I forget what they all were.
But it makes sense to me with the 5 groups described.
It is silly that so many groups who are,in fact, caucasians (that is to say WHITE) natter on about being “brown” or “asian” or “the other”. So much emphasis is put on skin color and then you watch a show like “Bones” or anything like that and the scientists tell you race just from looking at a skeleton. So clearly the difference in skin is probably the least of it.
Now on to read the article!