The TL;DR here is to get enough traction to bring attention to a property owner in West Linn to change the name of the apartment complex named, The Orient, and its complementary private street name, Chow Mein Lane.

For folks that live in the Portland Metropolitan area, you may have driven down Highway 43 in Clackamas County and passed a street named Chow Mein Lane, that houses an apartment complex named The Orient.

Okay, so what's wrong with this picture? In 2020, a high school student from Lake Oswego inquired with West Linn's Interim City Manager with:

I am a high school student who lives in Lake Oswego. Yesterday I read this blog entry and I ask you to read it (if you haven’t before): https://www.pharoahbolding.com/blog/i-went-to-lake-owsego-im-not-gonna-go-back-to-lake-oswego-HBm6A It is basically an account of several micro-aggressions which in total make this African-American person not want to return to Lake Oswego. Even though they are in West Linn, passing by Chow Mein Lane and The Orient are explicitly mentioned.

I’ve driven by the road and building over and over for years and as I got older I realized that the names are troubling. A friend of Asian ancestry even mentioned them to me before as an example of LO’s racism. I researched and found that “Oriental” was deemed so offensive that in 2016 the United States Congress 3 unanimously passed a law to ban the term in federal law. Here is a short and informative video on the term’s history: https://www.pbs.org/video/why-do-we-say-asianamerican-not-oriental-4mohsx/

These names on signs (seen by thousands of people a day) send the message that our area accepts racism. Given that millions of Americans are actively protesting racism in all forms, the least we can do is rename a blatantly offensive road and complex.

I’m sure this is not the first time this has been discussed by city officials. What are the obstacles? What can we do to welcome people of color as they travel through our main thoroughfare? (Source: West Linn Granicus)

What is wrong with The Orient?

The term Oriental can be considered a pejorative and disparaging term when used to describe a person.[1] John Kuo Wei Tchen, director of the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute at New York University, said the basic criticism of the term developed in the U.S. in the 1970s. He has said: "With the U.S.A. anti-war movement in the '60s and early '70s, many Asian Americans identified the term 'Oriental' with a Western process of racializing Asians as forever opposite 'others'."[17] In a 2009 American press release related to legislation aimed at removing the term from official documents of the State of New York, Governor David Paterson said: "The word 'oriental' does not describe ethnic origin, background or even race; in fact, it has deep and demeaning historical roots".[18]

In 2016, President Obama signed New York Congresswoman Grace Meng's legislation H.R. 4238 replacing the word with Asian American in federal law. (Source: Wikipedia)

What's more troubling is cities across America are observing record increases of hate crimes targeted at Asian Americans (https://time.com/5938482/asian-american-attacks/).

Please sign. We need to bring awareness and petition for this property owner to change these names. Otherwise, to what this high school student originally said:

• These names on signs (seen by thousands of people a day) send the message that our area accepts racism. Given that millions of Americans are actively protesting racism in all forms, the least we can do is rename a blatantly offensive road and complex.