South Asians (as well as Middle Easterners, of course) are Caucasian- to the extent that "Caucasian" is a meaningful category, of course.
Sure, they're not "white", since whiteness is a social construct and all that. Give it a hundred years and they very well may be as white as the Italians and Irish are these days. White, in America, really just seems to boil down to anyone who's been here long enough and isn't black.
Depends on one's perspective.
My people wouldn't consider Italians or Irish to be much at all 'like us'. I suppose they're white, but they're not
the white, if you see what I mean.
I remember one time visiting my Italian/Jewish friend's home as a youth and looking in his refrigerator - what a culture shock: it was stocked to the gills with rich foods. At my house all you'd find would be stale milk, an old pound cake, and an opened can of peaches covered with saran-wrap and a rubber band.
