ABSTRACT
It is important to dene exactly who Asian Americans are, yet in many ways their denition dees any one category (Ho, 1998). A basic de- nition might include Asian Americans as those individuals of Asian heritage living in the United States (Cao & Novas, 1996). is denition is immediately challenging though, as the countries represented by the Asian continent (i.e., China, Japan, ailand), the Asian subcontinent (i.e., India, Bhutan, Pakistan), and Asian diaspora (i.e., Nigeria, United Kingdom) are incredibly diverse in terms of cultural values, history, and language. Keeping in mind the politics of language, counselors should be aware that Asian American emerged as a term of empowerment by Asian American activists who wanted to refer to all Americans of Asian descent (Hong & Domokos-Chen Ham, 2001). e use of this term was an astute political move and an act of resistance against previous terms, such as Oriental, which labeled Asian Americans as foreigners in addition to grouping them with those living in Asian countries (Cao & Novas, 1996).
