 Almost invariably it is assumed that a person of Asian descent has genetic origins in East Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea or Taiwan.Although it is a common assumption that people of Asian descent are all of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Taiwanese descent, in reality the term "Asian American" broadly refers to all people who descend from the Asian continental sub-regions of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia as a whole.People of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent make up roughly 7 million of the roughly 18 million Asians in America, but Filipinos, Vietnamese and Indians make up a larger portion of the total than Japanese and Koreans.