Flight, by Sherman Alexie

[rachelmanija]

Teenage half-Indian, half-Irish "Zits" has spent his life being bounced in and out of foster homes and juvenile detention. One day, in yet another holding cell, he meets an angelic revolutionary of a white boy who calls himself Justice, seduces Zits with talk of bringing back the Ghost Dance, and eventually sends him out alone to randomly shoot up

Comments

[smillaraaq]

*nods* Considering how often folks in the US are uncertain what terminology to use, it never surprises me to hear folks in the further remove of Europe or the UK are confused, too! (And then if you add in some of the alternate terminology that's mainly used in Canada, it gets even more complicated...) The U.S. Census Bureau has apparently been using the term "Asian Indian" for the sake of clarity, but I don't know how broadly that's been adopted outside of bureaucratic circles; in casual conversation, at least, I've seen folks using "Indian" or "desi" much more often.

Even in the states, I suspect that first assumptions on hearing "Indian" with no other context clues probably varies a lot depending on the hearer's background and regional demographics, too -- folks in an area with a larger SE Asian population might perhaps be more inclined to think "India" first, while folks living near a large reservation are probably more likely to think "native". In the small upstate New York town nearest the rez my family's from, for instance, the last census showed 20% of the population as native, while the Asian category that would include folks from India is less than 1%. In a setting like that, if you hear people talking about Indians it's probably a pretty safe bet they're talking about folks from the rez...