There are 29 place names in the United States that contain the word “Chinaman.” They include places like Chinaman Trail in Oregon, Old Chinaman, and Chinaman Creek in California. This has to change. Thread on why this is horrible, and what to do about it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/28/americas-maps-are-still-filled-with-racist-place-names/

“Chinaman” is a derogatory term for a Chinese person, and it’s shameful that this word dots the American landscape. The reasons for changing these place names, and reckoning with their histories, are both ethical and strategic.

The ethical is obvious: The term denigrates people of Chinese heritage. (Comparing “Chinaman” to the terms “Englishman” and “Irishman” isn’t apt, because those words aren’t wielded as insults.)

The strategic angle is more complicated, but no less important. The US is locked in a struggle with China. Beijing claims that the US discriminates against Chinese people, and that only the Party can save them.(This is false, as the many catastrophes of the Party’s rule shows).

But when other Americans mistreat Chinese Americans, it aids Beijing in three important ways. It strengthens the party’s claims of protection over all Chinese, and it belies the notion still held by some Chinese liberals that the United States is a beacon of tolerance.

It also alienates the many Americans who wish to toughen U.S. policy toward China without being, or seeming, racist toward Chinese people.

And while we're at it:

Even amid the racial reckoning of the Black Lives Matter movement, there is still a mountain in Virginia’s Shenandoah range called the Negrohead, as well as a cape, near my hometown of Syracuse, N.Y., called Negrohead Point. This is disgusting.

Want to do something about this problem?
Share the petition that is advocating to change the name of Chinaman Lake, in northern Minnesota. Call elected officials in Sacramento, California’s capital, and encourage them to raise awareness about renaming nearby Chinaman Creek.

Or better yet, push for the Board on Geographic Names to expand its list of prohibited names to include “Chinaman” as well. (end of thread).