Originally Posted by Kinch:
OK, but let's be sure you have your nomenclature straight.
'South Asian' for the purposes of polite literary / academic / whatever discussion means Indian or Pakistani, Nepalese, or Sri Lankan. I suppose Bhutanese too... But nobody pays much attention to them
'South East Asian' Encompasses everyone else from Myanmar on up to the Chinese border + Philippines and Indonesian Archipelagos. Yes, I know it's complicated. But rough terms of art here.
Anyway a Vietnamese is South-East Asian is a Vietnamese. Seems to have had a Canadian passport too, IIRC.
So in this particular case, no South Asian was involved. And given that initial reports said one was the perpetrator, I'm quite in favour of the record being set straight loud and long.
As for your semi-rhetorical question: There is a difference. See if you can figure it out for yourself and then update us