in the late seventies, there was a push by asian anti-defamation groups for the 'mainstream' to stop using the word 'oriental' in favor of 'asian'. 'oriental' had been chosen arbitrarily to be racist in the absence of widespread use of actually racist terms like 'chinaman' and so forth. this is why these groups refer to themselves as 'asian' in their names. i wonder if we'll see it changed back to 'oriental' or 'mongoloid' in 'asian studies' courses.
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Name : j-fleming21271, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, City : chicago, State : IL Country : United States, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, I am 1/2 Chinese and when I first heard of East Indians being referred to as Asian I was very confused. Along with the points others have made, I think that part of the problem comes from the fact that Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese (& others) look pretty similar, especially to whitey. Not only that, but there are people who get MAD, when someone calls them Chinese and they are actually Korean, or something like that. So a word gets coined to refer to people who fit that vague image profile, it is 'Oriental,' (which means 'Eastern') but eventually, that word comes into disfavor, and so a new word has to be found to mean the same thing, and people start using 'Asian.' Then, people such as East Indians arrive on the scene, and since they are technically Asian, thats what they call themselves. But since the word is often meant to mean: 'people who look similar to Chinese, etc.' EVERYONE gets confused.
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Name : Brian23018, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : part Chinese, part white, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 32, City : New York, State : NY Country : United States, Occupation : Programmer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, Actually, it's also because many Asians in America found it quite offensive to be labeled Orientals. There were a lot of negative stereotypes and racism associated with that word. I suppose, here in America, it became akin to a racial slur. A movement in the 70's helped helped remove that word from P/C speech. The term 'Oriental' is associated with the murders in the American west of Asian Americans, the 'Chinaman' stereotype, the indentured slavery of railroad workers, and the laws set by the US Government during the 1800's-1940's. (and more)
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Name : Jonathan L., Gender : M, Race : Asian, Age : 22, City : Manhattan, State : NY Country : United States, Education level : 4 Years of College, 
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