As the Simpsons Movie publicity machine hulks its way towards opening day, the overhaul of several 7-Eleven stores into fictional Kwik-E-Marts has seen a backlash by Asian-Americans, as articulated by Manish Vij on Comment is free yesterday. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, a brown representative among the yellow residents of Springfield, is the town shopkeeper, famous for phrases like "Thank you, come again" and "The bullet holes in my chest spell 'lucky'"; and effigies of him throughout the made-over 7-Eleven stores have seen accusations of racism.

As a British Asian, it has always been difficult for me to gauge the corresponding nature of communities in the US. Judging by their representation in Hollywood, the bulk of US literature or even American TV, it is a wonder they actually exist at all. Whenever I spoke to Asian-Americans in London, they marvelled at the robust identity of South Asians in the UK compared to back home - that you could go from a place like Southall or Tooting to central London within half an hour always struck them as amazing, let alone a community like Brick Lane lying on the doorstep of the City. And it is not a case of no minorities appearing on US TV sets or magazines, it's just that Asian-Americans are more of a sideshow compared to Hispanics, blacks, Jews or even people who label themselves Irish or Italian. And of Asian-Americans, South Asians are a sub-clause themselves.

The 2000 US census recorded 11.9 million people classifying themselves as having either full or partial Asian heritage, 4.2% of the US population. The largest ethnic subgroups were Chinese (2.7 million), Filipino (2.3 million), Indian (1.9 million), Vietnamese (1.2 million), Korean (1.2 million), and Japanese (1.1 million). Other significant groups included Cambodians (206,000), Pakistanis (204,000), Laotians (198,000) and Thais (150,000). So while Americans of South Asian descent may certainly be a proportion that cannot be ignored - New York was the venue last week for the World Hindi Conference and Detroit recently hosted the North American Bengali Conference - as a group they are nowhere near the same league as Hispanics (14.1%) or blacks (12.1%). So Apu, his wife Manjula, their octuplets, and his brother Sanjay, are beating the numbers to be in Springfield at all.

Apu is perhaps the most visible Indian on US television - and he is actually Indian-Indian when he arrives but subsequently becomes a US citizen, to become Indian-American, or American-Indian - or is that Native-American? As Lisa Simpson says when Apu gets citizenship: "You know, in a way, all Americans are immigrants. Except, of course Native Americans." To which Homer replies, "Yeah, Native Americans like us". Lisa persists: "No, I mean American Indians." "Like me," chimes in Apu. Anyway, you get the point.

The two south Asian faces that come closest, in terms of fame, on US TV are actually played by British actors - Naveen Andrews, who plays the Iraqi soldier, Sayid, in Lost and Parminder Nagra, who plays the British-Asian doctor, Neela Rasgotra, in ER.

Apu may run the local shop, he may indulge in some jiggery-pokery with best before labels and he may count "five-finger discounts" as among his pet hates but he is also intelligent, funny, assertive and impatient with stupidity. When Homer Simpson troops into the store dressed in a Union uniform for a keg of beer and says: "You know, Apu, you should join us, we're always looking for more Indians to shoot in our Civil War re-enactments." Apu simply answers: "Oh dear, I don't know what part of that sentence to correct first."

Understandably, many Asian-American employees of 7-Eleven stores feel they are being put on show for the amusement of customers. A similar scheme in Britain would likely be met with equally vehement opposition if not more so, as the "Paki shop" epithet is still running on fumes in some parts of the UK. One 7-Eleven owner wrote: "Apu should not be the example for new Americans to be compared with and especially not [the company]. If 'Joe six-pack' is proud to be compared with Homer I am not willing to accept to be compared to Apu." Fair enough, 7-Eleven employees deserve their right to dignity in the workplace like anyone else, promotion or no promotion, and there can surely be no shortage of self-congratulatory idiots already bellowing Apu-isms in stores across the country; but my contention is with the idea that Apu is purely a negative role model.

Apu forms part of the contrary texture of the Simpsons - there are stereotypes everywhere but many of them don't behave along stereotypical lines. There was, in fact, a bowling team called the Stereotypes consisting of the Sea Captain ("Arr"), Groundskeeper Willie the Scot ("Hoots mon!"), Cletus the redneck ("Gawd damn") and Luigi the Italian chef ("Mama mia") who asked Apu to join, but he was instead claimed by Homer's team, the Pin Pals. He was also in the Be Sharps with Homer, Principal Skinner and Barney Gumble, a Beatles-like band that played a rooftop gig to George Harrison's derision that "It's been done before". He is a good friend to Homer and vice-versa; when Apu is caught having an affair it is Homer and Marge who try and reconcile the couple with a mixture of "chocolate desserts and blasphemy", according to Manjula.

Apu may work at the Kwik-E-Mart but his adventures take in everything from being part of the town volunteer firefighters - where, in one scene, Homer, Krusty and Apu are described as "Christian, Jew and miscellaneous" by Reverend Lovejoy. "I am a Hindu, there are over 700 million of us" retorts Apu. "Oh, that's super," beams the Rev - to having a penchant for public nudity. So which stereotype does he fit exactly?

According to a US Census Bureau report in 2004, among the races surveyed, Asians had the highest proportion of college graduates at 50%. In contrast, about 30% of non-Hispanic whites and 17% of blacks had a degree. Perhaps the stronger generalisation is that Indians and Indian-Americans generally become doctors, yet the town doctor in Springfield is black. Maybe Apu should have been a computer programmer or dotcom millionaire from California, like Vinod Dham, the inventor of the Pentium chip? Why not a modernday life-skills svengali like Deepak Chopra, as lampooned by Jimi Mistry in The Guru. Or he could have been more of a pioneer, like Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-American astronaut, who died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster of 2003 or Dalip Singh Saund, who made history in 1956 when he became the first US Asian elected to Congress.

Where Apu comes into his own is that he is never embarrassed about his own beliefs, identity or mannerisms. He openly displays his Hindu gods such as Ganesh and Vishnu in his store ("Mr Simpson, please do not offer my god a peanut"), he talks with authority and affection on a range of subjects, from the great American novel (telling Principal Skinner after hearing his idea for a book about genetically engineered dinosaurs, called Billy and the Cloneasaurus, "First you think of an idea that has already been done. Then you give it a title that nobody could possibly like"), to America itself (When asked the cause of the Civil War in his US citizenship test he replies: "Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter...", to which the interviewer says: "Wait, wait... just say slavery.")

Apu also holds a PhD in computer science but has been at the Kwik-E-Mart since his student days paying off his loans. If that is stereotypical of Asian-Americans I empathise with the financial constraints but am buoyed by the qualifications for serving customers. When Apu acts overtly American to battle an immigration law, he feels sad that he is letting down his Indian heritage and with the help of the Simpsons he gets his green card.

He integrates, but on his own terms and without selling himself out. Typical? According to the Census Bureau, 52% of foreign-born people from Asia become naturalised US citizens. The corresponding rate for the foreign-born population as a whole is 38%.

Apu has an Indian accent because he is Indian, as in from India; he tries to swindle his customers because he is a shopkeeper with flexible morality, like Arkwright, the very white, very English, shopkeeper in Open All Hours; he is suspicious because he has been shot eight times ("all Kwik-E-Mart employees must be trained in the deadly arts"). There are shopkeepers like him, both in Britain and the US, who we meet every day, who don't feel self-conscious or embarrassed by their mannerisms or accents. Industrious and dignified, many desis (a term for South Asians, literally meaning traditional, or "of the homeland") may have a wry chuckle at the abundance of polyester shirts and pencil moustaches but it is a chuckle loaded with affection.

The image may not be accurate across the board but I challenge anyone to go to India itself and not see the polyester/moustache combo in abundance. And after all, Americans hardly get a free ride in the Simpsons, nor do Scots, Mexicans, Jews, Italians, teachers, old people or comic-book guys. Portrayals may be amusing or ribbing, but they are rarely malicious and I would find it very hard to believe the Simpsons writers and actors do not hold affection for all their creations, including Apu.

I sympathise with 7-Eleven workers being forced to parade about like dancing bears to promote a film but if Apu is a stereotype it is by virtue of him being America's favourite Indian. The movie campaign may have overlooked and marginalised the feelings of many Asian-Americans and the way they're portrayed but Apu bucks the stereotype as often as he is a victim of it - maybe with a thousand TV characters there will be a thousand new stereotypes. Until then, there are worse representations than Apu, like many of the characters he serves, for example.