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Originally Posted by shayde78
Good question - I have received pretty universal feedback from folks who are Asian that 'oriental' should be used to refer to objects (arms, carpets, etc.), while people should be referred to as 'Asian', or more specifically, to the region and/or country being referenced (i.e. Persian, South Asian, etc.).
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Thank you for alerting me to this. I looked into it and it may be more of a US specific issue.
Orient comes from Latin
Oriens which is ”rising” and means East (where the sun rises). The point of reference for ancient Romans of course was the City of Rome. The opposite of orient is
occident which means West in Latin.
In the US apparently the word oriental was considered to be a racial and derogatory term in the 1970s (perhaps due to the Vietnam war?) and its use has been phased out.
The word oriental in Europe has perhaps become a bit imprecise as it now includes the Middle East and all of Asia, but the word is hardly considered derogatory. As example can be mentioned the prestigeous School of African and Oriental Studies in London (SOAS).