From: ajh@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Hu)
Subject: Re: ORIENTALS??????? (FAQ)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 10:45:44 GMT

In article <25446@dog.ee.lbl.gov> jscott@Aztecridge.LosGatos (John Scott) writes:
>Whenever I call an oriental "oriental", I always get told to say Asian
>instead.  I just don't understand what the big deal is with you
>orientals!!!  I always ask for a legitimate reason but never get one.  I
>hope someone on this newsgroup could give me a reasonable explanation. 
>Otherwise, I see nothing wrong with calling Korean, Chinese, and Japanese
>people "oriental."
>
>John Scott

Well, this is a kinder and gentler response, written to another poster's
kinder and gentler question, but in JJ and Jim's kinder and gentler spirit,
here goes:  (BTW, this will probably get revised at some point to include
Andy's stuff about word reclaiming.  I had been thinking about that for
a while.)


Here's my on-demand FAQ for the o-word debate:

In article <...> ...@leland.Stanford.EDU (...) writes:
>
>Please excuse my ignorance, but why is the term "Oriental" drogatory?  It's
>embarrassing when people ask me why it's not PC and I don't know the answer
>myself! 
>
>...
>
>

There's no need to be embarrassed; the vagaries of these kinds of terms
can be confusing.

OK, so a long time ago, people in Europe used to refer to everything to
the east of them as the Orient, including for example the Middle East,
since orient means "east".  So far, so good.  This mysterious area
was the source of all sorts of wonderful things like silk and spices,
so the Europeans attached also sorts of exotic, mysterious connotations
to the Orient.  As Europeans gained a better concept of world geography,
they eventually used "the Orient" and "Oriental" to refer to East and
Southeast Asia, where people look "Oriental" in our current usage.

Anyway, that usage of "Oriental" has survived a long time, and it still
frequently carries all of the exotic/foreign/inscrutable/mysterious
connotations.  These connotations happen to coincide with many of the
stereotypes held of Asian Americans.  Furthermore, by definition, the word
"Oriental" is Eurocentric, referring to things east of Europe.  For these
reasons, some Asian American activist types decided that "Oriental" was
a Bad Word, and that "Asian" was more accurate, less Eurocentric, and
less loaded with strange connotations.  No big deal, right?

Well, a lot of people didn't want to change their language usage.
Some people grew up using "Oriental" and saw nothing wrong with the
word.  Others came from other parts of the world, where hip-activist-
American-English-languistic-evolution hadn't hit.  Still others never
encountered anyone aware of Asian American politics, so had never heard
of this word usage change.  Some people were exploiting the exotic mysticism
connotations and resisted change.  (Very early on, you would see articles
about business and trade in Asia, whereas the travel articles would talk
about visiting the Exotic Mysterious Orient.)  Finally, some people were
convinced that this was a typical case of left-wing-politically-correct-
thought-police-mind-control (which it was) and decided in typical
right-wing-politically-correct-knee-jerk-response that the word usage
change was intrinsically evil and had to be resisted at all costs.

For a while, therefore, you could identify a person as being an
American who was aware of and sympathetic to Asian American politics
by his/her word choice.  Now, however, many exploitation-types have
realized that saying "Asian" instead of "Oriental" is the cool thing
to do, without changing any of their stereotypes and misconceptions.
(You can force a person to change his/her behavior, but you can't
for force a change in thought.)

The upshot is to use whatever word you feel most comfortable with, or
that makes your listeners most comfortable, but don't be surprised if
someone takes offense.  And in the time you save by not not worrying
about word-usage, try to make the world a better place.
						--Alan J. Hu