[hijack]
Anyone see SNL tonight? (11/4/00) The host Charlise Theoron<SP> (Devils Advocate, played the wife also in Cider House Rules). Anyhow part of her opening monolouge was the fact that she was born and raised in South Africa but lives in the US now. This makes her a valid African American. Anyhow, I thought it was funny and it reminded me of some of the content of this thread.
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All of the international students from the Far East at my school refer to themselves as Asian (when they don’t just say “I’m Japanese” or whatever). Two of my friends, one Japanese and one Taiwanese, were going to have a campus radio show called “The Asian Hour” where they played Asian pop music, but they ended up not having the time for it.
It’s only a troublesome term if people try to use it to apply to non-Americans. What’s the problem when used to apply only to American blacks? They are a group that is culturally distinct from black Africans or black Caribbeans, so why not have a term to recognize that distinction?
…Americans being perceived as white in other countries, especially ones that only know of America through TV and movies.
I’m an American living in Bangkok. Ethnically speaking, I’m Chinese–but was born in L.A. When Thais ask me where I’m from, I say “America.” Then there’s this moment of silence–you can actually see the cognitive dissonance in their heads–as they process what I’ve said. If I’m feeling generous, I’ll say “My parents are from China,” to which they will smile and nod, their (innocently) myopic universe returned to order. Usually, though, I’ll hold my ground. Let them chew on the truth.
Kicking and screaming will they be dragged into the new world. That goes for us too. These labels wouldn’t be a problem if there were no racism. But there is, and as such language suffers.
Don’t call me Oriental, I don’t like it. I won’t bite your head off for it (unless your context has intentionally racist overtones)but I will ask that you don’t use the word. To me it has colonial connotations and it’s my right to let you know that.
No, you didn’t colonize me personally, but neither did I massacre native Americans, yet if they want me to stop saying “Indian” I will, because it costs me nothing and makes them feel respected. Language is fluid, history is complex. My rule is this: to err on the side of sensitivity. Is that so bad?
I think the problem is that the word ‘Asian’ already refers to a group of people, that being peole from the continent of Asia. And, not all Asians are Oriental. So, the non-oriental asians are being disrespected by the term. It makes them seem insignificant or non-existant.
For those who want to be termed american, again I say that we still need a term for your race for medical reasons and for merely describing your appearance. American just does not say much about someone’s personal physical appearance.
I can understand that Oriental may have picked up some baggage as a term and that there may be a desire to move to a new term. However, I think that Asain is a poor choice.
I’ve gotten a few responses from the gang at Cheers to SuaSponte’s Language Laws, and I’d like to clear up a few things.
EjsGirl, I never asserted that “Oriental” is an offensive term. I don’t know whether it is or not, although if I had your experience using the term, I wouldn’t use it again, on the off-chance that the next East Asian person I ran into found it offensive. Better safe than sorry.
Next, I don’t think you insinuated that the change of terms is rampant PC-ism at all. To my mind, the OP did, both in the thread title and in asking for “justification” of the change. Finally, I meant that “Oriental” is a descendent of “Chinaman” in that, at different points in time, they were the accepted (non-derogatory) terms for people from East Asia. Your response proves the point - you would never refer today to an Asian as a “Chinaman” because it is now offensive, but the word itself was originally merely descriptive. Will “Oriental” become as offensive as “Chinaman”? Time will tell, but I think I see the start of the trend now.
This is not a minority right. If whites don’t like to be called “cracker” (or Chris Rock’s term “Yakoo”), don’t call them that. Conversely, if the guy down the block hates being called “Peanut”, don’t call him that either. 
And yes, you are absolutely right. In times when the terms are changing, a member of the affected minority should not jump down someone’s throat for using the terms that is starting to fall out of favor. This is idiotic and counterproductive. Further, a new term needs to have some common usage before continued use of the old term may be considered passe/offensive. For example, Jesse Jackson’s “persons of color” in the late-80’s/early-90’s really went nowhere.
My real point is that people who are not part of the affected minority should recognize that “this is the term I was raised with” is not a valid basis for continuing to use a term. Times change and people should change with it.
Bingo.
Sua
I’m bumping this back to the forefront because Kimstu and I were hijacking another thread.
I almost started a new thread in an attempt to try to eliminate the cultural description thing. I want to clearly separate between the words for various cultures and the words for the race.
Kimstu says that ‘oriental’ was never used as a neutral term for the race, and yet I have dug out some government forms (student loan) that I filled out in the mid seventies that have on them check boxes for race. One of the boxes says “Oriental”. It’s what my Chinese and Cambodian and Korean friends called themselves during that time. (There are also boxes for Arab, Slavic, Jewish, etc.) Some of these same friends now insist on being called asian, I refuse because I think that it is degrading to the other races who live on that continent. So, I say ‘Southeast Asian’ as a compromise.
However, I would like to stress again that I feel that southeast asians who insist on being called ‘asian’ are treating the other races as insignificant. What if they said, “I think ‘oriental’ is insulting. I insist that you call my race the ‘whytpeeplaredumb’.?” I am not entirely happy with the SE Asian designation either. Still, I think that before I am going to completely give up on a designation that I have never heard used in a derogatory manner except in the altered form of ‘ornamental’, I want a more neutral term defined.
I admit that originally ‘the Orient’ refered to most of asia But, it wa seventually given an additional meaning: the name of the race we’re talking about in this thread. What’s wrong with that? Now, some modern members of that race no longer are comfortable with the old designation, fine, pick a new one. But, don’t pick something that is offensive to others.
I’m bumping this back to the forefront because Kimstu and I were hijacking another thread.
I almost started a new thread in an attempt to try to eliminate the cultural description thing. I want to clearly separate between the words for various cultures and the words for the race.
Kimstu says that ‘oriental’ was never used as a neutral term for the race, and yet I have dug out some government forms (student loan) that I filled out in the mid seventies that have on them check boxes for race. One of the boxes says “Oriental”. It’s what my Chinese and Cambodian and Korean friends called themselves during that time. (There are also boxes for Arab, Slavic, Jewish, etc.) Some of these same friends now insist on being called asian, I refuse because I think that it is degrading to the other races who live on that continent. So, I say ‘Southeast Asian’ as a compromise.
However, I would like to stress again that I feel that southeast asians who insist on being called ‘asian’ are treating the other races as insignificant. What if they said, “I think ‘oriental’ is insulting. I insist that you call my race the ‘whytpeeplaredumb’.?” I am not entirely happy with the SE Asian designation either. Still, I think that before I am going to completely give up on a designation that I have never heard used in a derogatory manner except in the altered form of ‘ornamental’, I want a more neutral term defined.
I admit that originally ‘the Orient’ refered to most of asia But, it wa seventually given an additional meaning: the name of the race we’re talking about in this thread. What’s wrong with that? Now, some modern members of that race no longer are comfortable with the old designation, fine, pick a new one. But don’t pick something that is offensive to others.
How is “Asian” offensive to “Orientals?”
Esprix
Asian is not offensive orientals, asian is offensive to non-oriental asians.
Bit of a clarification here. As a term for the race previously referred to as oriental, the term asian assumes that there are no significant asians who are not a member of that race.
VileOrb, thanks for redirecting this discussion here; you’re right, this is a much more suitable forum. Here’s what I said on the other thread:
Now picking up on the subsequent comments in this thread:
VO: Kimstu says that ‘oriental’ was never used as a neutral term for the race
Sorry, I didn’t mean to give that impression. Sure, some people associated “oriental” with East/Southeast Asians alone, just as some people associate “Asian” with them alone today. But what I said is that the word historically wasn’t geographically or racially unambiguous: many people did in fact use it for lots of different groups, so it carries a lot more connotations than just “people of the East and Southeast Asian racial groups”.
It’s what my Chinese and Cambodian and Korean friends called themselves during that time. […] Some of these same friends now insist on being called asian, I refuse because I think that it is degrading to the other races who live on that continent. So, I say ‘Southeast Asian’ as a compromise.
Well, first of all, your Chinese friends should be called “East Asian”, not “Southeast Asian”. 
Second, I agree, as I said above, that reserving the word “Asian” exclusively for East/Southeast Asians is inaccurate and misleading, although I don’t know that I’d go so far as to call it “degrading”. Third, I would certainly call a member of any Asian ethnic group “Asian” as a sort of shorthand, or in making cultural comparisons with Westerners (e.g., “See, you Asians may not be aware how much fuss there was in medieval European society over the introduction of the table fork…”). I doubt a Pakistani or Iranian would jump to the conclusion that I thought he was Chinese or Korean because of that.
*I am not entirely happy with the SE Asian designation either. *
Nothing wrong with it, except that you shouldn’t be applying it to Chinese or Japanese people. The term you are looking for to describe “the sallow-skinned, dark-eyed, black-haired people from the eastern or southeastern parts of Asia” is “East or Southeast Asian”.
*Still, I think that before I am going to completely give up on a designation that I have never heard used in a derogatory manner except in the altered form of ‘ornamental’, I want a more neutral term defined. *
Sorry, ol’ buddy, the currently acceptable usage has changed without your permission, and whether you like it or not, it is now widely considered somewhat offensive or at least in poor taste to use “oriental” to mean “East or Southeast Asian.” The latter term, however, is impeccably PC as well as being more informative and accurate. (And by the way, if you never encountered the term “oriental” used in a derogatory manner, you might want to get out a little more! Dollars to donuts that most of your Chinese and Cambodian and Korean friends have heard or read of its being so used.)
Besides, I think that you may be wistfully lamenting a “neutral term” that never really existed as such. You think that “oriental” as you used it had some kind of clearly defined racial designation. But did it really? By your definition, a Chinese person would be “oriental” and a Russian or a Pakistani wouldn’t. But how about Tibetans or Nepalis? Nepalis at least are technically South Asian, but many of them look much more like “orientals” than like most other South Asians. How about Tuvans or Mongolians or other Central Asian peoples? Some of them look quite “oriental” but belong to very different groups regionally and culturally—hell, some of them are actually Russian!
Face it, VO, looking for truly neutral and unambiguous racial designations is ultimately a hopeless quest—because, as our friend Collounsbury will tell you, “race” is ultimately a very flexible and ambiguous category that is not tremendously useful for true biological or cultural classification of subgroups of human beings. Give up the attempt to find permanently acceptable designations for races; instead, use currently accepted regional and cultural designations for regionally and culturally identified groups of people, and be content.
Kimstu - First, please stop with the cultural difference stuff, I am trying to define a race not a culture. It’s pretty clear that race and culture are different. I know that the words for races are often used to describe cultures as well, but that is not what I am shooting for.
Okay on to the meat of my debate.
I see your point that the line between races in not that clear. However, I think that some general categories can still be made similarly to colors. Is the color ‘aqua’ green or blue? Arguments are made both ways. If we can develop neutral terms for the races I don’t see any reason why someone would be offended by a suggestion that they were somewhere in the fuzzy area between, say, black and hispanic (unless you were commenting that the father was neither to imply a dubious parentage ;)). Maybe we can pick some famous respected figures of the past and say things like, he is of the race of Confucious whereas I am of the race of DaVinci. There’s always going to be some criticism of the figures chosen, I suppose. There are reasons to be able to speak of races. Physical descriptions are made much easier and sometimes there can be medical concerns. Currently, racial make up can either earn you or deny you special aid from the government or charitable foundations.
I spent a large percentage of my life in Baltimore. A large majority of the E&SE Asians I met there after the time when asian is reputed to have become offensive were college students. I never heard a college student use the term in a derogatory sense except in that they noted frequently that many universities had a high percentage of Orientals. There was some resentment of this. UMBC was reputed to stand for U Must Be Chinese, so maybe the Chinese need to change what we call their country because the word was used in this manner.
I have lived in Minnesota now for 3 years and tend bar on the side in a bar full of racists of all colors. But, still I have never heard the term Oriental used as an offensive term. I have heard the word ‘chink’ used to refer to a Vietnamese man in an intentionally derogatory way. The Vietnamese laughed because the speaker didn’t even know the difference between the different asian cultures and races. Then the Vietnamese man broke a bottle on the bar and sliced the guy up pretty good. I’d never actually seen that done with a bottle except in the movies. The dude ended up needing a transfusion to replace some of the blood he lost, so I guess it was pretty effective. Maybe the derogatory use is prevalent where the race is more prevalent. California?
The E&SE asians who have asked me not to refer to them as oriental say that oriental refers to rugs and food and that is why it is offensive. I don’t get it. I refer to Cambodian food and that doesn’t offend Cambodian people, does it?
I once again reiterate a point that you, Kimstu, seem to have conceded somewhat. That the term ‘asian’ is deceiving and inaccurate as a term for a race. I encourage S&SE asians who prefer that term to consider revising their position on this.
SuaSponte wrote:
A minor nitpicking; the term politically correct apparently goes back a way.
Seems to me “Oriental” is more old-fashioned than offensive.
And make all the “suggestions” you want to Orientals/East Asians/Asians - if that’s what they wish to be called, that’s what I’ll call 'em.
Once again, please - PC = “plain courtesy.”
Esprix
Bastard!! How dare you interrupt the flow of my beautifully cogent arguments with the facts!!! :mad: :mad: 
Sua
Esprix - So, is the E&SE Asains decide they want to be called, “Killgays”, you’d be ok with that?
My point is that I have actually heard Russians ans Jews say they think that the E&SE Asians (the ones that insist on being called asians) are guilty of the same kind of insulting egoism as Americans who think that the non-americans on this continent are not worthy of mention. The Russian in particular thought that it was insulting to russians to use a term that implies that all asians are of the same race as the E&SE asians. I think they can choose any term that is not offensive to others.
I am saying that by calling the race asian insults a lot of people from asia.
And I disagree.
Esprix
VileOrb: First, please stop with the cultural difference stuff, I am trying to define a race not a culture.
I know. My point is that I don’t think that that’s ultimately a really constructive or useful thing to do, because “race” isn’t a very meaningful category when it comes to classifying human beings—it just refers to a few superficial physical characteristics that don’t correlate reliably to things like language, culture, kinship, homeland, or most of the other classifications that humans use for self-identification. I agree that our culture has been pretty obsessed with differentiating between races and finding ways to classify races for quite some time now, but as I said, I don’t think it’s a very useful activity, and if it has now become more difficult to do, I think that’s a good thing.
*[…]If we can develop neutral terms for the races I don’t see any reason why someone would be offended by a suggestion that they were somewhere in the fuzzy area between, say, black and hispanic (unless you were commenting that the father was neither to imply a dubious parentage ). Maybe we can pick some famous respected figures of the past and say things like, he is of the race of Confucious whereas I am of the race of DaVinci. There’s always going to be some criticism of the figures chosen, I suppose. *
Yeah, that’s one of the problems, of course: it seems to me that such a classification marginalizes non-Chinese E&SE Asians (and non-Italian Europeans) just as much as using “Asian” only for E&SE Asians marginalizes other Asians. Also, we’ll eventually find ourselves asking, who should be doing the classification? To some extent, categorizing people in terms of “race” depends on ignorance of where the boundaries between groups of people are, and we’ve all got different ignorance. For example, up till about the nineteenth century, people in India had an ethnic designation “Yavana” that included all sorts of Westerners from the British and Portuguese to Iranian and Central Asian Muslims. Now do you think that you and I and other “European-Americans” belong to the same race as Iranian and Central Asian Muslims? (About a hundred years ago, many Americans and British would have been offended to hear that they were considered the same “race” as the Portuguese, even.) Who gets to pick who belongs to which “race”? The reason there are no permanent and neutral terms for races is that they’re so subjective; I don’t think there’s really any way around that.
*There are reasons to be able to speak of races. Physical descriptions are made much easier and sometimes there can be medical concerns. Currently, racial make up can either earn you or deny you special aid from the government or charitable foundations. *
I doubt very much that there’s any form of classification that racial categories are used for that couldn’t be done as well or better with cultural/regional categories. This is especially true of the physical and medical issues you mention (I wish Collounsbury would get his butt into this thread and explain the illusory nature of race as a biological category better than I can. I may have to go look up one of the other threads where he talked about it.)
*[…]I once again reiterate a point that you, Kimstu, seem to have conceded somewhat. That the term ‘asian’ is deceiving and inaccurate as a term for a race. *
Actually, I basically agreed with you on this right from the beginning, although the way I put it is that the term “Asian” is misleading and inaccurate as a specific designation for E&SE Asians alone.
I encourage S&SE asians who prefer that term to consider revising their position on this.
Personally, I have no problem with referring to E&SE Asians as “Asian” if that’s what they want. I just do not think it’s appropriate for them to insist that I may not also call other Asians “Asian” because the term somehow belongs to them alone. But I have not had the experience of any E&SE Asian trying to insist on that to me.
I have no problem calling any asians asian if I am referring to what continent they live on, but, if I with to refer to a set of physical characterists typical of a race, I think asian is a poor choice.
Esprix - Not sure what you disagree with. E&SE Asians find ‘Oriental’ insulting. Russians find it insulting to call E&SE asians simply ‘asians’. Just because you don’t agree that they SHOULD be insulted by it doesn’t make it less true. I don’t think ‘oriental’ OUGHT to be insulting, but I have stopped using it, because I don’t want to insult anyone. I just keep it handy for explanation should my ‘E&SE asians’ term get questioned.
And calling them “Oriental” seems to insult a lot of them, too.
VileOrb, I can’t decide whether you’re angry that some some Orientals prefer to be called Asians or simply frustrated. But this thread seems to have gone on way too long for the amount of light being shed on the subject.
When the Soviet Union broke up, we lost the common but incorrect term “Soviets” to describe people from the Ukraine, Georgia, etc. The “correct” term might have been to describe them as Slavic, since that’s the dominant ethnic group. Alternately, they could have been called Eastern European. But in an area where historic rivalries still run deep, and Eastern Europe was used interchangably with “Soviet dominated Europe” many of them wanted to be called Central Europeans, leaving Eastern Europe to the (real) Russians.
As I’ve noted before, Mrs. Kunilou does not wake up in the morning saying “As an Asian-American, I think it’s a beautiful day.” If she has to be called something, she’d prefer to be called “American of Japanese ancestry” or for short, “Japanese-American.” But given only two alternatives, she’d rather be called “Asian” than “Oriental.” And I can’t for the life of me understand why you’re arguing this point.
If someone whose grandparents came from Vladivostok or Ulan Bator (or Ankara, for that matter) wants to call themself “Asian” as well, that’s their right. If you want to further break it into East/South/Central/West/whatever-Asian, that might clear things up, but until that day comes along, we’re just going to have to muddle through.