before that it was based on 3 races: negroid, mongoloid, and caucasoid. it morphed into 5 races in the 90s to be more politically correct with the spread of neo liberalism. negroid is a no-no as it's derived from the negro or nigger word; mongoloid is synonymous with down syndrome and is also a no-no in official documents; caucasoid or caucasian is still used today by cops, news, media, etc. to further differentiate american natives from a combo of mongoloid and caucasoid, the american indian or alaskan native race was created. hawaiians, samoans, tahitians, and other polynesians petitioned for their own race as pacific islanders as they felt out of place in either the negroid or mongoloid racial categories. ironically pinoys were kept out of this group as pinoys were considered asians, although they could have been considered polynesians like folks from guam, tinian, saipan, etc. (islands that have seen military action and bloodshed in ww2).
also considered in the asian race in the 1997 official standard were indians from the sub-continent, although by biological classification ah nehs were more caucasoid than mongoloid. thus, asian includes all 3 (negroid, mongoloid, caucasoid): malays, pinoys, new guineans, timorese as part of negroids; chinese, japs, koreans, mongols as part of mongoloids, and south indians, pakis, afghans, iraqis, iranians, syrians, jordanians, etc., as part of caucasoids. jews and israelis, who are semitic and closer to armenians and arabs than they are to east asians are not considered west asians but white. some armenians, arabs and azerbaijanese are considered white if they have fair skin, blue or green eyes and blond hair, while those with dark skin, black hair, black or brown eyes are considered asian like ah nehs. one of the most difficult to classify is egyptian: neither african/black nor negroid and neither asian nor mongoloid. if an egyptian checks the "white" box, nobody will question him or her.
the most complexed and perplexing are 2 race/ethnicity combos: white with hispanic ethnicity and black with hispanic ethnicity. no where else in the world uses "hispanic" for ethnic classification. the u.s. have such a confusing blend of migrants from the caribbean, latin america, and west indies that a special ethnic category is created. but it is so wide ranging that it creates controversy of its own. for example, rihanna can be both black and hispanic but she prefers the black label without the hispanic ethnic sub-label. pablo sandoval the baseball player would be both black and hispanic. ricky martin, jennifer lopez, selena gomez would be considered white and hispanic. eva longoria is considered white and hispanic but she is 70% european (spaniard), 27% native american and 3% african. and last but not least, jah jamban the jamaican jumble would be considered black nigger and not hispanic but chink.