Oriental Asians

At what point in time and who was responsible for the usage of the word “Asian” as the politically correct alternative to “Oriental?” What’s so offensive about “Oriental?”

I was told that “oriental” refers to goods made in the orient. It makes people sound like “goods”.

I hope that isn’t true, because I just used the term Oriental in another post, and it wasn’t intended to be derogatory; just clarifying. I find “Asian” to be confusing, since Asia includes the MiddleEast, the Indian subcontinent, and the Far East. I always thought “The Orient” was synonymous with “The Far East”.

Recent threads on this topic:

“Oriental” isn’t Politically Correct?

The term ‘Oriental’ and racism in general

This question has bugged me as well. The previous threads do not answer the question: “when did it change?” I grew up in an urban area in the U.S. in the 70’s and 80’s, and always used the term “Oriental” as a kid to describe a group of people with with certain far eastern racial features and origin (What 100 years ago scientists might have called “mongoloid”, as opposed to “caucasian”) I too thought that “Asian” meant Indian or related groups. That seems to have been the commonly accepted usage in America at the time. I am aware that “Oriental” originally meant anything from the Middle East eastward, but I didn’t know that as a child. So I was politically incorrect and insensitive as a kid, but there was no malice in my use of the term at all. To my naive mind, “Oriental” was a descriptive term. I was not aware growing up that people were prejudiced against Asians, and am still shocked when I encounter tales of it.

So I was floored about 8 years ago, when I was having a discussion with a group of friends and acquaintances, and a very PC woman in the group told me the word “Oriental” was offensive. This was the first time I had ever heard that the term “Oriental” was objectionable. At the time, I felt she was overreacting, although if an Asian person had told me the same I would have taken them more seriously.

I imagine the real objection with the term “Oriental” is that in common usage, it does refer to the way someone looks, an archaic reference to race, which is not appropriate. Or is it?
Is it wrong to have words to describe common physical characteristics of people from a certain region?

However, it leads me to another question: I wonder what you should do when you really do have to describe someone’s appearance, to the police, for example. This happened to me once as a witness to a crime, and when the most expedient way to describe someone was “black” (the police had to prompt me) I felt very uncomfortable because of my PC conditioning. If I’m trying to describe an “Oriental” person’s looks to the police, what’s the best way to succinctly describe them?

I’ve stopped using the term “Oriental” of course, but I still wonder when the term became obsolete?

I don’t buy the argument that the term “Oriental” is based on an orientation to an origin point in the west, and therefore objectionable. Anyone who argues such clearly has a misunderstanding of the english language and the history of the term. I don’t buy it because there is an equal counterpart in the word “Occidental” which could include Africa and the Americas. Oriental and Occidental simply refers to East and West. If anything, the origin reference point was in the dividing line between the middle east (the Orient) and Europe, both sides being equal. Oriental was never a pejorative or subservient term, at least not in all the books I ever read.

I can’t give an exact date, but I first encountered objections to Oriental in the late 80s. Of course, the issue is more confusing because not all people of Southeast Asian ancestry actually hold those views. The two people I’ve worked with, most recently, whose parents are immigrants from China both use Oriental, rather than Asian, as have all the other Vietnamese immigrants and ethnic Japanese or Koreans I’ve known in the last 20 years. (This is similar to Indian/Native American, where different groups have been pretty vocal in preferring one over the other, with no clear consensus to guide those of us outside the groups.)

We know in all matters Cecil is up to date and would never commit a faux pas.

The SD archive says the collumns online date back to the mid-1990s. The all knowing one himself used oriental in a number of replies to refer to people we are now supposed to refer to as Asians.

Any person or persons may ask to be referred to in any manner they desire and they can also be offended by any reference without regard to evil intent or inaccuracy.

If I were to follow the logic of political correctness, I’d be offended to be labelled “white” and insist to be referred to as “European-American.”

I use the terms East-Asian or South-Asian or Middle-Eastern. If I know somebody’s country of origin (such as Chinese) I go with that. If someone tells me that they personally have a preference of how they like to be referred to, I go with that. Personally, I think use of the word Oriental is out of vogue when referring to people from the Eastern part of Asia, and the term East-Asian should be used.

What I don’t get is why this is such a big deal to people. I can understand if you take umbrage to being unjustly accused of racism because you accidently or unknowingly use the word Oriental. That’s unfortunate, and you can explain yourself is somebody takes that tack with you.

But if people don’t want to be called Oriental, what is the big deal? Do you know how many times a day I have to adjust my terms to accomodate the people I’m speaking to? If I say “frat” instead of fraternity in front of a fraternity member, I might offend them. If I use the term Jesus-f***ing-Christ in front of a religious Christian, I’ll probably offend them. I’ve heard Marines use the term Jarhead amongst each other in a joking fashion, but I can gurantee you that if I used the term around a Marine, all hell would break loose. Once I’ve realized that a certain term can be offensive in certain situations, and inoffensive in others, I adjust my speech accordingly to match the situation. I don’t see what’s so PC about that. That’s just life.

Any American Indians I’ve ever talked to laugh when I ask them if they find “Native American” a more acceptable term. They don’t care either way because it’s a white man’s terminology. “Native American” also includes Hawaiians and Eskimos and may not be accurate when you’re talking in generalities. Native people in the U.S. prefer to be named by their nationality, where applicable: i.e. “Navajo”, “Ute”, “Tohono O’Odham”, etc.

I’ve observed a pattern that the people who get most bent out of shape at these things don’t belong to the ethnicity in question.

This might have been true if you could find a place where it was “politically incorrect” to use the word black. Unfortunately for that notion, somewhat over 60% of people in the U.S. whose ancestors were imported from Africa continue to use the word black. There is no “PC” stigma attached to black.

The first paragraph and the second paragraph of your posts directly oppose each other. Are you saying that the (sic) Native Americans mentioned in your first graph didn’t get VERY bent out of shape, but just got a LITTLE bent out of shape?

Hmph.

No real factual answer to this quesiton so allow me to digress. I think the change really took place in the late 80’s and early 90’s. And it’s an Asian-American thing.

I’ve certainly tried to find a “smoking gun” for the past 2 years or so on this subject and haven’t except that “Oriental” came from the British Colonial times and had inherent negative connotations. My own thoughts as why Oriental became a bad word in the US stems from 2 catchphrases came into being:

  1. Oriental is a rug - which to me is pretty non-sensical but if repeated enough times with enough ferver becomes something unquestioned. On politically correct California college campuses through 1985, this phrase was not in common or even uncommon usage.

  2. Oriental is like the word negro - and while I personally think that differenent ethnic groups are too unique to use as an analogy, this analogy is a reasonably good one. However, “Oriental is like the word negro” certainly gets modified and repeated as “Oriental is like the nggr word.” The sensitive person who in a million years would never dare utter the word nggr, is aghast and chagrined that they used the equivalent for an Asian. It should be obvious that “Oriental” if indeed it is a slur, is nowhere near as nasty a word as nggr.

Cartooniverse, I don’t see why you didn’t understand my post. I said the American Indians I talked to said it didn’t matter to them, but it seems to matter mostly to people who aren’t American Indian/Native, or Oriental, or whatever.

Shouldn’t we be listening to people who actually belong to these groups? It feels like the shifting semantics are supposed to be a cover up or substitute for real change. It’s like throwing someone a bone.

This crops up on the boards every couple of months. Asian-American dopers have a response that ranges from “don’t care” to “seems odd or archaic” to “it’s definately a bad word and you shouldn’t use it” to “only racist scum and kkk members use it.” Search for fiesty mongol for the last example.

There are enough Asian-Americans who get offended by the term “oriental” that decent manners and respect should be reason enough to make the easy switch to substituting the word “Asian” instead. However, outside of the US, this isn’t an issue and the words “Asian” and “Oriental” can have different meanings.

This is beside the point, but I find it somehow ironic that someone who calls himself “mongol” would object to “oriental”.

from http://www.etymonline.com/m5etym.htm

Mongol - 1738, native name, said to be from mong “brave.” Mongolian as a classification for “the Asiatic race” is from 1828; mongoloid is 1899 for the genetic defect causing mental retardation (see Down’s Syndrome).

When: 1968
Who: Yuji Ichioka
Where: California (UC Berkeley)
Why: Read more about renowned Japanese-American historian and Asian American studies pioneer, Prof. Yuji Ichioka, here.

  • He was born in San Francisco in 1936. During part of his childhood, Ichioka and his family were forcibly removed and incarcerated in the USA Topaz concentration camp during World War II.

  • While at U.C. Berkeley, he organized the Asian American Political Alliance in 1968. He was an activist for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. Prof. Ichioka was a key founder of the ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES CENTER at UCLA, where he taught its first Asian American studies class in 1969.

  • Prof. Ichioka dedicated much of his life to social justice and scholarly research in the U.S., Japan, and Latin America. Yuji Ichioka died on September 1, 2002, in Los Angeles.

For more insight on “why”, check out "The Forgotten Revolution", lead article in the new Asian American magazine, Hyphen.

An interesting discussion re: “Is Oriental Offensive?” on Yellowworld.

The problem is too many people focus on the labels not the attitudes beneath them. People who used “oriental” in an offensive manner and created the derogatory connotations of the word will eventually do the same with “asian”.

I’m an Occidental living in the Orient.

:wink:

Me, I find ‘white’ to be equally vague. White people are from all over Europe, North America, and parts of Africa. As a descriptive term, I think ‘white’ is about as helpful as pointing in a general direction and saying, “That guy over there.” :wink:

Seriously, I don’t think it’s practical to worry about which terms are “better” to use over others. I know a LOT of Asian-continent people (and am one myself) and no one has ever expressed an overwhelming preference for one term over another. Certainly none of them ever get offended if they’re called by the “wrong” term. Don’t know what could account for this difference. Maybe it’s the laid-back spirit of Hawaii, or maybe everyone everyone else knows wears underwear that’s too tight. Anyway, some Asians prefer Asian, some prefer Oriental. I’ve observed that where I’m from, people my parents’ age (baby boomers) prefer the term Oriental, whereas their kids use Asian. But it very well could be a regional thing or a political correctness thing. People are going to prefer different terms for different reasons.

So there’s no point in trying to debate over or reason out a term that will make everyone happy, because that’s impossible. If you call someone by a term that offends them (and you had no intention of doing so), apologize, say you weren’t sure which term they preferred, and hope they accept your apology. As I see it, you haven’t intentionally made a social faux pas. If you at least try to be sensitive to others’ preferences, then you’ll be all right. Worrying about offending people and hoping for a blanket solution is just plain silly.

If you are really concerned about offending people, just ask them if they’d be offended before the words slip out of your mouth.