home

Oriental Or....
May 25, 2016

A

new federal policy puts the word, “Oriental” off-limits as a way to describe a person’s ethnicity. That change – to Asian or Asian-American – was in a bill that got unanimous approval in Congress and was signed by President Obama late last week. TownDock.net considered what this might mean for the Town of Oriental. We noted that the town took its name from an 1862 shipwreck, (the steamer Oriental, which took its name from a Cuban port, thus giving Oriental Spanish rather than Asian roots.) A poll is underway, asking whether the town’s name should remain the same or change to “Shipwreck” or “Smiths Creek.” (The latter had been the community’s name before it was named “Oriental.”) Some readers had additional thoughts on the subject.

Editor.

The Oriental Opera group is called OOPS. Do we have to change our name to SOPS? I think it loses some of its cache.

And the Shipwreck Food Initiative sounds like a survival rations distributor.

But WINOS may like the change to WINSS. Naw…

Doug Sligh Oriental 5/23/16

Editor:

How about Occidental? After all, we do live in the Western hemisphere.

Bob Miller Oriental 5/23/16

To the Editor,

Shipwreck is not going to encourage visiting boaters. Dragonville will.

Pauline Sterin Arapahoe 5/23/16

TownDock.net welcomes correspondence on this subject and others. Please limit your letter to 500 words. Send your letter to letters@towndock.net. No anonymous letters will be accepted. Well-made, civilly-spoken points welcomed. Please include the city & state where you live. If you cc TownDock letters you send to government officials, they may be included in the Letters column. (Such correspondence to government – town, county, state federal – is part of the public record.)