English

Noun

Amerasian ‎(plural Amerasians)

1. 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.

Adjective

Amerasian ‎(not comparable)

1. 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 [...]

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

1. ↑ Philip Herbst (1997) The color of words: an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States, Intercultural Press, p8
2. 1 2 (2005) The American Heritage guide to contemporary usage and style, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p25