South Asians were classified as white by the U.S. Census before the 1980s

Evidence

See Khandewal’s Becoming American, Becoming Indian: An Immigrant Community in New York City (2002) about how prior to laws passed in the 1980s, South Asians were classified as white according to the U.S. Census Bureau. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 564

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to the reader’s religion-vs-race question: shows Irish-style ‘becoming white’ applies to South Asians, a historical anchor for shifting racial terrain.
• QUESTION: Which specific laws in the 1980s reclassified South Asians, and through what mechanism? Worth chasing.