Should the residents of Jap Road in Beaumont, TX, change its name?

[BurtWorm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/16/national/16road.html

Texas Community in Grip of a Kind of Road Rage
By SIMON ROMERO

Published: July 16, 2004


BEAUMONT, Tex., July 14 - It is merely a four-mile stretch of asphalt on this East Texas city's outskirts, dotted with some ranch-style houses, a few decaying trailer homes and a shuttered gun shop, in the distance the rice fields that brought a small group of Japanese settlers here a century ago.

But the name of the country lane, Jap Road, has long angered many Japanese-Americans. Equally outraged are numerous people who live on Jap Road, which has 100 or so residences; they view criticism of their address as meddling in their affairs.

"I hear 'Jap' cars and 'Jap' bikes all the time," Buddy Derouen, 69, a retired petrochemical worker who lives on the road, in the community of Fannett, said in a recent letter published in The Beaumont Enterprise. "Why not Jap Road?"

The competing positions are set to clash in a meeting on Monday at the Jefferson County Courthouse. Leading the county commissioners' agenda is a discussion of whether they should change the name.

[Maeve]

1. And then there's Oklahoma's Lake Jap Beaver...

Originally named Waurika in 1953...don't know why/when it was changed. :shrug:

[BurtWorm]

2. You mean it was changed from Waurika to Lake Jap Beaver?

:wow:

[GOPisEvil]

3. I love the bigotry on display by my fellow Texas residents.

L. J. Bergeron, a retired pipe fitter and former gun shop owner who lives on Jap Road, did not bite his tongue when asked about the name.

"If it's offensive to someone, they should either move or stay away from here," said Mr. Bergeron, 62, leaning on the Harley-Davidson parked in front of his home.


How about "This town is filled with redneck peckerwoods Street"?

[BurtWorm]

4. Damn! That should have been an option!

:toast:

[Fenris]

5. Hooray for my home town!

:eyes:

One of my non-blood related relatives is a Japanese-descended rice farmer in Hampshire-Fannet, about 30 minutes outside of the city. I'm sorry, but a racist is a racist is a racist. And the people who want to keep the sign are racist. It's a fucking road, people.