They’re Asian. They’re American. But, They Wonder, Are They Asian American?

When Dinesh Nepal first arrived in the United States in 2010, he had never heard of the term “Asian American.”

He knew that he was of Asian descent. He grew up in a refugee camp in Nepal after his parents were expelled from Bhutan, a landlocked Himalayan nation. And after he moved to Pittsburgh and became a United States citizen, he began calling himself an American.

But it never occurred to him to put those two labels together, even after he and his wife opened a shop selling bubble tea — a Taiwanese specialty that is iconic for Asian Americans.

“It never really mattered,” Mr. Nepal, 26, said at his restaurant, D’s Bubble Tea and Cafe, in Pittsburgh.

Dinesh Nepal, whose family was expelled from Bhutan, opened a bubble tea shop with his wife in Pittsburgh after moving to the United States.Credit…Nate Smallwood for The New York Times

Since 2008, about 85,000 Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees have resettled in the United States and now live in cities like Pittsburgh, Columbus, Ohio, and Rochester, N.Y. Most have become American citizens, comprising the newest group of Asian descent.