they had seen at various political demonstrations of the time. The manner in which the two garnered support for the alliance sheds light on the expressly panethnic approach that was at the core of this new Asian American identity: they went through the roster of the Peace and Freedom Party, a majority white anti-war organization that was protesting the Vietnam War at the time, and telephoned all the individuals they could find with “Asian” surnames. Though the Asian American identity was initially not inclusive of many Asian ethnicities, new waves of Asian immigrants since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act have accelerated the expansion of the identity. At the time of the U.S. Census of 2000, 88% of Asian America was made up of six Asian ethnicities: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, and Vietnamese. Criticism The use of "Asian American" as a panethnic racial label is often criticized, due to the term only encompassing some of the diverse peoples of Asia, and for grouping together the racially and culturally different South Asians with East Asians as the same “race”. Americans of West Asian descent, such as the Iranians, Israelis, Lebanese and the Armenians are notably excluded from the term despite Western Asia being geographically part of Asia. As well as West Asians having racial and cultural similarities with South Asians. The common justification for grouping together South and East Asians is because of Buddhism's origins in India, but the religion has "practically died out" in South Asia. Although the panethnic term refers to Americans of East, Southeast and South Asian ancestry, "Asian American" is usually synonymous for people of East Asian ancestry and or appearance, which has caused some to highlight the general exclusion of Southeast Asians and South Asians. See also References Sources Ethnicity Race in the United States