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My amazing deceased grandfather who was half Irish and half Potawatomi was an obsessive crossworder. He worked and completed 3-4 everyday of his life, including the NY Times and LA Times. My entire life he would discuss a person or event then make mention of their last name, including the latin meaning and more recent country of origin. He would always ask me when I discussed my friends whether their "appearance" was consistent with their surname and it's origin. He experienced his fair share of racism; it is certain that an Irish woman marrying a Native American in 1900 was not an acceptable choice in small town America. He attended only Indian school until college and saw only a "medicine man" until shortly before his death. His inquiries were not malicious but rather the result of his interest in language and genealogy. I often categorize myself as Irish, not because I do not identify with my Native American, German and French roots but because it is most time effective and because I most physically identify with the Irish traits and experience.

Spay, you can certainly categorize your daughter (and she when older) however you choose when required. While some Americans may think of Chinese or Korean in reference to Asian, most Asians believe that Indians are the "purest" Asian race; because of the caste system, there was, of course, little inter-marrying. Most Chinese, Laotian, Burmese, Vietnamese and Thai are a combination of many ethnicities. Buddhism was a later philosophical and religious theology based in Hinduism. My Southeast Asian husband and my Indian BIL (as do all of their family when needed) fully identify and categorize themselves as Asian.