Amerasian
English
Etymology
Blend of American + Asian, modelled after Eurasian[1]
Noun
Amerasian (plural Amerasians)
- a person of mixed American and Asian parentage, especially if their father was an American serviceman or temporary resident stationed in Asia during the Vietnam Era
- 1995 Steven DeBonis, Children of the enemy: oral histories of Vietnamese Amerasians and their mothers, McFarland, p125
- I am an Amerasian, why am I not allowed to stay here legally? Why do you try to keep me out, why do you discriminate against me?
- 2005 Trin Yarborough, Surviving twice: Amerasian children of the Vietnam War, Brassey's, px.
- By contrast, the average age of the Amerasian AHA immigrant arriving in America was seventeen – about one year younger than the average age of U.S. servicemen in Vietnam during the war.
- 2010 Ilona Bray, Loida Nicolas Lewis & Ruby Lieberman, How to Get a Green Card, Nolo, p156
- The Amerasian's spouse and minor, unmarried children are eligible to immigrate along with him or her.
- 1995 Steven DeBonis, Children of the enemy: oral histories of Vietnamese Amerasians and their mothers, McFarland, p125
Adjective
Amerasian (not comparable)
- of mixed American and Asian parentage
- 1980 Geo, Volume 2, Issue 2, p80
- Keane's speeches have not reduced the number of Amerasian births, but a decade of sleuthing has helped nearly 600 Amerasian orphans find new homes in the United States.
- 1998 Peter Conn, Pearl S. Buck: a cultural biography, Cambridge University Press, p365
- In the mid-1960s, a letter arrives from his Amerasian son, now twelve years old and victimized by poverty [...]
- 2004 Anni P. Baker, American soldiers overseas: the global military presence, Greenwood Publishing Group, p119
- Interestingly, however (and fortunately for the children), Amerasian parentage held virtually no stigma in the Phillupines, in contrast to the situation in other Asian nations such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam [...]
- 1980 Geo, Volume 2, Issue 2, p80
Usage notes
Amerasian is not synonymous with Asian American (an American of Asian heritage).[2] The term is most closely associated the Korean and Vietnam Wars, during which many children were fathered in Asian countries by American servicemen.[2] Chambers Dictionary explicitly restricts the word to "fathered by an American serviceman in Vietnam or Korea" (1998 ed. p.47).
References
- ^ Philip Herbst (1997) The color of words: an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States, Intercultural Press, p8
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 (2005) The American Heritage guide to contemporary usage and style, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p25 Cite error: Invalid
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tag; name "Heritage" defined multiple times with different content