Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. They include ethnic groups such as Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Korean Americans, Japanese Americans, Pakistani Americans, and others whose national origin is from the Asian continent. In Oxford dictionary, "Asian person" in the United States is sometimes thought of as a person of East Asian descent^[2]. In common reference "Asian" is often used to refer to those of East Asian descent or anyone else of Asian descent with epicanthic eyefolds.^[3][4] This lags behind the US government definition^[5][6] and general usage in many parts of the US and many consider those of East, South or Southeast Asian descent with or without epicanthic eyefolds to be "Asian".^[7][8][9] In the US Census, people who originate from the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia and the South Asia are classified as part of the Asian race; while peoples from Siberia, Central Asia, Western Asia are classified as "White."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Americans