The House voted unanimously on Monday to pass a mostly Democrat-sponsored bill that would remove words like “Negro” and “Oriental” from federal law.
Those terms and others are found in a few places under current law, such as laws creating the Office of Minority Economic Impact at the Department of Energy, and another law dealing with local public works projects. The bill from Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., would eliminate those terms completely.
In each case, the laws include language referring to “a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut.” In both cases, those sections of the law would be replaced with, “Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native.”
On the House floor Monday, Meng said it’s long past time to change the law, and her lawmakers agreed with her. Members voted 376-0 in favor of the measure.
“This bill will strike the term ‘Oriental’ from federal law in the last two places it is used to refer to a person,” she said. Other Democrats joined her on the floor, and said language in the federal code needs to be scrubbed of those words.
“It helps bring these statutes up to modern times and into the 21st Century,” said Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill.
Similar language was included in the “North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act,” which passed the House in December. That bill was aimed at easing permitting requirements for energy companies, but it hasn’t been taken up yet in the Senate.
Back in December, Meng said it is long past time to make the change.
“The word ‘Oriental’ is an offensive and derogatory term that should no longer be used by the federal government,” she said. “Nobody in our country, regardless of ethnicity, should be referred to in an insulting manner by the government.”
While the bill is cosponsored mostly by Democrats, it was also cosponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif.
