forever, her note of explanation is a simple list of descriptors for him,
which include:
illegal alien
emotional alien
Yellow peril: neo-AmericanLater he finds another scrap of paper with a definition of himself on it that
she could not quite include on the final list: False speaker of language.
Like African Americans, Asian Americans have more and more difficult
hurdles to leap before they can transcend stereotype and be accepted as
individuals. Accent, when it serves as a marker of race, takes on special
power and significance. For many in the African American community
there is little resistance to the language subordination process, in part
because the implied promises of linguistic assimilation – while obviously
overstated – are nevertheless seductive, precisely because the threats are
very real.
The idea of perfect English, of belonging absolutely to the mainstream
culture of choice, is one that is hard to resist for Asian Americans as well.
Discussion Questions and Exercises
Consider the series of court rulings beginning in 1883 that
led to the shutdown of all immigration from China for about
sixty years. Look also at the related rulings that made it
illegal to grant Asians naturalized citizenship. In that
broader context, read the story of Bhagat Singh Thind,
who came to the U.S. in 1917. What were the long-range
repercussions of the Supreme Court decision that sent him
back to Punjab? In linguistic terms, how factual was the
Court’s definition of Indo-European? The website:
http://goo.gl/4wKkS.
Look closely at Table 15.2 adapted from the Derwing et al.
(2002) experiment. What conclusions can you draw from