“Oriental” has meant different things at different times and in different places. The Orient Express went to Istanbul. More recently, and perhaps in the U.S. more than in Europe, “Oriental” has largely referred to East Asians. Indeed, Ritchey Produce Co., Inc. v. State (Ohio 1999), turned on whether a Lebanese-American was entitled to benefit from an affirmative action program that covered “Orientals.” The court said “no,” endorsing a rule that defined the term to refer to “all persons having origins in any of the original people of the Far East, including China, Japan and Southeast Asia.”
But to my knowledge, only one country’s official name actually labels it Oriental. What is that?
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