Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
From: mleventh@us.oracle.com (Michael Leventhal)
Subject: Re: Asian vs. Oriental
Organization: Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores CA
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 05:55:25 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <92247.115254PDLBH@CUNYVM.BITNET> PDLBH@CUNYVM.BITNET (Le Duc) writes:
>In article <1992Sep2.220425.26412@colorado.edu>, tranht@spot.Colorado.EDU
>(<<<-=* clueless * hopeless *=->>>) says:
>>
>>Hi all,
>>        H 0 hie^?u ta.i sao co' ng` object being called Oriental ma` Asian
>>thi` ddu*o*.c ... co' anh chi. na`o bie^'t xin gi?a thi'ch du`m nhe.
>>
>>Thanks
>>Hieu
>>
>  IMHO, "Oriental" refers to the mystique feature while "asian"
>is more readily accepted because it does not have that connotation.
>Many asian-americans don't like being called Oriental since most of
>them are born in America, and the fact that they are referred to as
>Oriental is regarded as a racial insult.


Oriental is a word of Latin origin, Asian is from Greek, and possibly, earlier
Semitic origin.  They both mean the same thing:  east.  Traditionally,
Oriental is used to refer to all cultures and peoples east of Europe or
originating east of Europe including Arabs, Turks, Hebrews, Indians, Persians,
Chinese, Japanese, and all the cultures of southeast Asia.  Asian refers
primarily to the people from the Asian land mass, which happens to be roughly
the same people as originate from "Oriental" cultures.

There is nothing pejorative in the term Oriental, which has an
exact counterpart in the word Occidental; however, it is a cultural term
which may carry cultural baggage.  An offshoot of Romanticism, called
Orientalism, painted a very sensuous picture of Arab, Turkish, and Persian
societies.  Religions such as Buddism, Hinduism, and Islam are still very
little understood among people of European origin and this contributes to
the concept of Oriental "mystery".  Since, lately, most people recognize
that these views are Euro-centric and inaccurate the word 'Oriental' has
been designated the token sacrifice and is deprecated.  

The use of the word Asian did not become popular until fairly recently.
Many middle-aged people, both Asian and non-Asian, will still use the
word Oriental without any ill intent.

To me, Asian and Oriental, mean the same thing and are equally Euro-centric.
Even if I want to be Euro-centric, both terms are too broad to be useful.
This problem has been addressed by the tendency to implicitly exclude
Middle Eastern and Central Asian peoples, reducing the geography and racial
grouping.  This may be a little more precise, but is still confusing.

I have noticed that Vietnamese people here often have this problem because
they want to refer to concepts which they consider common to many
peoples of southeast Asia and China.  Usually, a nation's people are not
so broadminded in sharing the credit for their culture.

Many Vietnamese immigrants I have spoken to will use the words 'American'
and 'white' interchangably when they want to refer to people or customs
of people born in the United States who are of European origin.  It
is a pretty serious error; any citizen is an American and there are
Americans of virtually every racial, ethnic, and national origin.
The only legitimate use of American to refer to a race is the term
'Native American'.  Actually, this mistake is made when the person is
groping for the term which is equivalent to 'Asian-American' for people
of European ancestry.  The problem is that it doesn't exist because people
of European ancestry have never identified themselves as a group, and don't
think of their ancestry as broadly European.  So the racial term 'white'
must be used, even though the other racial terms 'black', 'red', and 'yellow'
are discouraged.

-- 
Michael Leventhal                  internet:  mleventh@us.oracle.com
MultiMedia Development             voice:     415-506-6399
Oracle Corporation                 fax:       415-506-7200
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese