[101404]

He's an African American, but still American.

Edit: why the downvote? Is he not?

[benjohnson]

Honestly... it's complicated. As I understand it, African-American is one of the more recent ways of saying (with the intent of being polite) that someone is a black skinned and ethnically African and is American.

The term was not meant to extend to corner cases like mine - I'm white, but one of my ancestors grew up on the African continent in an island in the Atlantic and spoke Portuguese.

I suspect that this term will fall out of favor soon and be replaced by another.

[101404]

By that logic, does American Asian only refer to people with certain facial characteristics? And are American Europeans only those with a white skin color?

I mean here in Europe we have plenty of Europeans that are not white. So, if a black skinned German went to the US, people would suddenly label him "African" American, just based on his skin color?

That seems quite a racist use of those terms tbh.

[jacquesm]

African American != South African immigrant.

[101404]

What if the South African immigrant was black and had lived in the US for 40 years?