Over the Birth/First Parent blog, Jenna talked about adoption language and her preference to be called a first mom vs. a birth mom. She pointed out that she prefers first mom, but has no problems with the term birth mom. It’s all in your prospective and how the words are used.

Over on one of my Yahoo groups, there was a very similar conversation about the use of Oriental vs. Asian. I read through the comments and then, as typical, had my own opinion to share on the matter.

It is no longer politically correct to use the term Oriental in the United States. People who use the word Oriental often get hushed or lectured about using the term Asian instead. In other parts of the world, Oriental is still widely used and many Asian people still identify themselves as Oriental. So, where did the word go wrong?

According to Dictionary.com, Oriental means:

adjective
1. (usually initial capital letter ) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Orient, or East; Eastern.
2. of the orient or east; eastern.
3. (initial capital letter ) Zoogeography. belonging to a geographical division comprising southern Asia and the Malay Archipelago as far as and including the Philippines, Borneo, and Java.
4. jewelry.

noun
5. (usually initial capital letter ) a native or inhabitant of the Orient.

That really doesn’t sound so bad. Yet, to many, the word is offensive. I thought very hard about the subject before I weighed in on why I think people find it offensive, because, personally, I don’t find the word Oriental offensive. Some have suggested that it is offensive because it means “east” in reference to Europe and this promotes a Eurocentric history (see American Heritage). I’m not sure I really buy that, however, I do find that the word is often used in an offensive way. As a history major, I have studied the earlier parts of United States history with a little more depth than the average student and parts of our history fascinated me more than they would the average history major. Our past was not perfect and we were very segregated up until the 1970s – in some areas we still are. Oriental was often used negatively to group all Asian Americans into stereotypes and to talk about “those people” with the slanted eyes.

I try very hard to listen to the way the word is used before I take offense. Some people who are very close to me sometimes use words that have been deemed inappropriate, but rarely do those people have bad intent. Are they saying, “those Orientals are all alike” or are they saying, “I met an Oriental woman at the store today who was interested in learning more about your son.” The part of me that was raised in this politically correct world will cringe at first when I hear the word Oriental, but another part of me recognizes that there are many words that describe where I came from and it often comes down to the intent – not just the word itself.

If you are interested, go to your favorite search engine and type in “Oriental vs. Asian.” Some of the links were fascinating.

If you would like to comment, but not on this site, feel free to e-mail me at adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com.