I think Asian and Native American are the same thing. Didn't you guys walk across the now sunken bridge between Asia and Alaska and populate North, Central and South America?

If I were you I'd be pissed. You weren't even considered for best Asian blog.

As far as the 1/2 Iroquios goes, I wish I could say that. Man, I'd be playing that up big.

Aside from the cool factor, you could probably start a casino in your basement.

As an aside, the Oriental comes from latin, orien. It means to rise, or the diection of the sunrise. In other words, Orient means East. Oriental is a person from the East.

I can't see anytone being upset by that unless they were a WestCoast rapper.

Georgia clay. No basement. :(

Then again our crawl space runs the full length of the house. Maybe a casino that caters to dwarfs?

You could also move to the reservation,tell the US government to go fuck themselves,pay no longer taxes or live by US laws and simply sell cigarrets....live in a t railer,become an alcoholic and bitch about the white man and his fire water all day...you could be THE steretype of ALL stereotypes!

I could do better than that. I could meld and combine all of the stereotypes from the Indians, the Irish, the English, the German and the Byelorus.

Do the Byelorus have any stereotypes? Any Asians in the audience who could help out here?

i'm asian and personally, i find the term "oriental," when used in reference to people, to be offensive and distasteful. i was just reading the following and it sums up my feelings about the issue better than i could:

" a) it brings up bad history. the terms "Orient" and "oriental" were popular in the heyday of Western colonialism. usage of the term is an automatic cue for references to the British Raj, the Opium War, the occupation of the Phillipines, and other events and periods in which the inhabitants of Asian countries were enslaved, victimized, or otherwise mistreated by Europeans (and later, Americans).

b) it has problematic racial and political connotations. while "Orient" translates simply as "The East," over time, an ideological paradigm emerged that spun itself around the term: The Orient was seen as the farthest point from civilization (i.e. Europe) and thus a region of barbarism, exotic custom, and strange delight. "Orientals" were conceived of as mysterious and inscrutable, with traditions and beliefs so different as to be inhuman - and thus requiring of either speculative study or religious evangelism. As social historian Edward Said detailed in his seminal book of that name, the intent and result of orientalism was the objectification of cultures in Asia and the Middle East, providing a rationale for colonial subjugation, missionary conversion, and military adventure, it later also created a context for domestic racism and xenophobia.
It's nonspecific. As perceived by Western Europeans, "The Orient" included all of Turkey, the Middle East, Asia and to a lesser extent the Pacific Islands. An Iranian was therefore just as "Oriental" as a Chinese person, though in contemporary times, the term is never used in that manner. While "Asian" is not much more specific, it at least is a term bounded by geography, rather than paradigm. It would be difficult to argue that "Orientals" shared anything in common, other than in the feverish minds of European orientalists.

c) It doesn't have an appropriate counterpart. The most subtle yet invidious problem with the term "Oriental" is that it stands alone: No one refers to Europeans as "Occidentals." Consider the term "Orient" only has meaning in the West; in the East, it is the Americas and Europe that are foreign and "outside," and most Asian cultures have similar but inverted conceptions referring to "The West." Hemispheric definitions are always problematic, since the world is, after all, round; but at least the terms East and West don't come loaded with imagery and history of "Orient" and "Occident."

d) It's more appropriately used for inanimate objects. The establishment of trade routes linking the nations of Asia and the Middle East (which occurred long before the opening of Asia to the West) meant that commodities and other goods were regularly transmitted between cultures. As a result, when one refers to Oriental spices or rugs, one has a stable rationale from which to speak: spices and rugs are among the only things that the mixed bags of peoples known as "Orientals" actually had in common. In general, the use of the adjective in relation to inanimate objects or abstract concepts has largely been considered acceptable, if not embraced (there are people who still prefer speaking of Asian spices, or breaking down rugs into Persian, Indian, and Chinese carpets).

mamazilla,

I can't sepak for anyone else, but thanks for posting that. I always wondered what the rationale was for that. I think I was belwildered mostly because the term 'Oriental' doesn't really hold any negative connotation with me. I doubt that many Americans do, but I'm sure you're correct when it comes to Europe.

I don't understand why inanimate objects can be classified that way, though. It seems consistent to call spices and rugs Asian spices or Asian rugs. Go figure.

On an unrelated note... Since we're talking about politically correct references, I prefer to be referred to as a Buccaneer-American instead of 'dirty pirate', thank you very much.

mamazilla,

a) The terms were popular since regular trade was established between Europe and the Orient. I myself am not cued to the Raj, any wars, occupations, enslavement, victimization or other mistreatment by the terms and I have yet to meet anybody who is. When you hear "Oriental" do you think of a fat Brit on a howdah? No, you think of a somewhat short person with dark hair and epicanthic folds.

b) Edward Said is to social history what Michael Moore is to documentary. While the original connotation may have included Turkey and the Middle East even your quote says that this is not longer so. Orientals do share things in common including general similarity in body build and facial characteristics as well as social constructs like writing styles (symbolic characters). To say these don't exist is either wishful thinking or an outright lie. Grouping terms do not imply that all described members are the same, only that they share a set of characteristics. The French are culturally dissimilar to the Scots yet they are both European. The Ethiopians and Zulu have almost no societal common ground but are both African. The Pawnee and Iroquois have exceptional differences in every aspect of their society but are both Indian tribes.

c) Oriental has perfect counterparts. I listed several of them in section "b". You do not need to define an opposite to have counterparts. What is the opposite of blue? There isn't one, though red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet are its counterparts in the visible spectrum of light. Oriental is not used as a hemispherical description so I'm not sure why that argument was made. Oriental doesn't mean "not here", it refers to a people and area in the general southeast of Asia.

d) Once again this argument says that the peoples we think of as Oriental have nothing in common (except rugs). That simply is not true.

But I think you've missed the entire point of my post, which is likely my fault as I didn't develop the post nearly as well as I should have. Oriental, caucasian, hispanic, african, et al are all descriptions of the appearance of groups of people. I for one am sick of being classified and counted based on what I look like. I am especially sick of this color-casting being done under the guise of "heredity". I'm American. My heredity is American for several generations. The whole "I'm checking the 'Asian' box" thing was to expose the skin-tone seeking bullshit for what it is. (And to have a bit of fun with it, of course.)

My point is that I will be answering "American" any time I am asked what my heredity is even though (especially though) I know that what they want to ask for is my pantone number.