The proposed legislation would eliminate the use of the term Oriental in documents used by state, public and city agencies when talking about people with an Asian or Pacific Islander heritage. It would be replaced with the term, “Asian.”
“I want the Senate to get back to work and pass my bill,” Meng said Friday outside Flushing Town Hall, where she had gathered area Asian-American leaders, who support her effort.
Also with her was state Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington), whose district is just over the Nassau County border. He has a special reason for supporting the bill and is the Senate sponsor.
“You ask why a nice Jewish boy would support this bill,” Johnson said. “Well my sister is Asian. She was adopted by my parents from South Korea and will always be an Asian American. I support the bill 100 percent because you must treat people with respect.”
He added it is necessary to be sensitive to people and using the term Oriental is not appropriate. “It’s about basic decency.”
Meng said the term is considered derogatory by many Asians and does not describe their race or ethnicity. “For adults faced with such language, it’s a sad reminder of a time when even casual insults of Asian Americans were accepted and encouraged; for younger New Yorkers it’s alien, insulting and confusing,” she said. “There is nothing good about this relic and it needs to be removed from our official discourse.”
Dictionary.com, the largest online dictionary service, defines “Oriental” as a native of the Orient or the East, while the Associated Press Stylebook, which most newspapers use as a guide, says “Asian” is the preferred term for an inhabitant of these regions and that Oriental refers to people of the Far East.
Johnson indicated the term should have been eliminated long ago. “It is my hope that once this current stalemate in the Senate is resolved, we will be able to pass this important legislation,” he said.
If the bill is passed, the word Oriental under the category of race in all state documents would be eliminated.
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