28. "RE: some honest questions about the words "oriental" and "asian"" In response to In response to 0
I think people have reponded in depth to the first part of your question about the historical significance of the word Oriental.
The second part of your question concering the term "Asian" brings up issues as to whether any word can accurately describe and be inclusive of all people in the Asian continent. The answer is no. However this problem isn't just limited to Asia. Africa and Europe are also diverse continents in which simply refering to someone as African or European doesn't fit. (New World Latin America is a little different due to more cultural uniformity created by the Spanish colonizers and genocide of Native peoples and their culture). With that said, I think the word Asian should be used at the most surface level when you want to refer to somoene from the Asian continent. Connecting it to culture, identity, etc. is very problematic. Even if you refer to someone by their nationality (as another response mentioned) it is still not enough because nations are also very culturally and linguistically diverse. I think it's part of the Western mind, the need to have to categorize everything. And as is evident today, it's proven impossible to come up with appropiate terms to categorize human diversity whether on the basis of "race", culture, language, ethnicity, etc (insert arbitrary category here).