You guys have to hear Lance’s siren sound in French omfg

On Asian "accents"

It started when I was in kindergarten, and I was so proud I did not have to go to Bingo class, unlike my friends, because I could speak good English -

although I had no idea what a yellow dog that could spell had anything to do with Chinese.

(I figure out now that it was probably called Bilingual class)

I am lucky. I speak the fluent, accentless English of newscasters, the dialect spoken by the children of immigrants, that we learned not from our parents but rather from watching Sesame Street and other things on tv.

Last year, a white facebook friend of mine posted, “In order to celebrate Chinese New Year, me talk rike chinese man arr day.”

And then told me that she was “sorry I was offended” and “she didn’t mean anything by it” when I (nicely, sweetly) told her that that shit was not okay. She said that she saw it the same as doing an accent, like Irish. Or British. Or Italian. (for bonus points, she even said that she has lots of Asian co-workers and friends, and LOVES Asian people, and so is not a racist.)

And when one of my white friends gets drunk, he thinks his “Asian accent” is hilarious.

And I was told by a coworker about the time my Asian coworker mispronounced “Barroway” as “Bwawwoway” and how hilarious it was.

Here’s the thing - can you guess how many Asian people I know who actually say

me rikey

me from _____

me so solly

(or, if you like, the fetishized versions: me so horny, me love you long time)

if you said ZERO, then ding ding ding! Congratulations, you have working brain cells.

No, my misguided fb friend, the “Asian accent” is not an actual imitation of an accent, comparable to your bad British/Irish/Italian - but rather a mockery of Asian people and their supposed inability to speak English. It is the perpetuation of the image of Asian people as perpetual foreigners in America.

Like that time when my family was at an Italian restaurant, and we were speaking to my father in Cantonese, and a drunken white lady said very loudly, “GOD when you come to this country at least learn the language!”

Or when my father was pulled over for speeding, and although he said “what’s the problem, officer?” the first thing the state trooper said was, “Do you speak English?”

Your fake “Asian accents” are not harmless and silly, because at the root of the joke, it says - you, you are stupid. You cannot speak English. You are Other. You do not belong.

my parents have been in this country for 30 years. They have been American citizens for 30 years.

And they are very self-conscious of their imperfect English, afraid that it makes them look ignorant, knowing that it marks them as immigrants. That, after 30 years, you can still be told (in not so many words) that you do not belong.

The Cultural Revolution started in China when my father was 13. He was pulled out of school and, later, sent to work in the fields. (He escaped to Hong Kong when he was 18, but that is another story for another time.)

When my father came to this country, he had a middle school education and did not speak a lick of English. He worked as a busboy at a Chinese restaurant, the evening shift that ran until 3 or 4 in the morning, and went to school during the day.

It took my father ten years to earn his bachelor’s degree. He is now an engineer.

Is this not your “American Dream?”

When my mother came to this country, she spoke very little English. She got a job as an entry level clerk. Over the years she earned one promotion after another. She is now management at a large federal agency, and manages funds for the whole state.

Is this not your “American Dream?”

And my father didn’t understand why his coworkers said, “flied lice, flied lice!” to him over and over and laughed.

And my father is still afraid to speak in a professional setting, even when he has ideas.

And my mother still checks and double checks her professional e-mails with me, for fear of mockery from the same people she manages.

And people don’t understand why I can’t take a harmless joke. Why I don’t think that shit is funny.

No, I don’t “rikey.”

No, I won’t “love you long time.”

And no, I’m not sorry.

So, please, kindly - FUCK OFF.

ciaomunch

Reblogging this for, like, the fiftieth time because it has never stopped being relevant to my life and it always, always breaks my heart.

It’s not funny. It’s not okay. It’s not harmless. It’s alienating and hurtful.

silverluminosity

Okay. I never comment on posts, but.

Fun fact from a linguistics student.

Languages like Japanese and Korean have one liquid phoneme. Just one. This refers to, in English, our L and R sounds. To those speakers, these sounds are exactly the same in terms of phonetic meaning. The difference, for them, is essentially (in a really broken down and basic way) the difference between saying “toe-MAY-toe” and “toe-MAH-toe.”

So, if an East Asian person confuses these sounds, it’s because for them, they’re the same sound, just pronounced slightly differently.

So, in short, fuck you, and your nasty racist comments. Try learning Mandarin Chinese as a native English speaker. It’s a tonal language. Have fun.

learninglinguist

I’m learning Korean because as someone majoring in linguistics, the writing system fascinated me. I’m white and this is my first time studying an asian language. I was telling my friends about how cool it was that ㄹ usually sounds like /r/ but sounds like /l/ when put at the end of a syllable. My friend @existing-casually told me about how in many asian languages the /r/ and /l/ are the same letter and explained that this is usually what racist mocking latches onto. I was pretty shocked because I hadn’t made the connection yet but wow it’s there.

Oh man. I did a bit of linguistics at uni and it always interested me, but what I have got experience in is speaking both Mandarin and Japanese. Now, Mandarin I’ve been learning for years and still struggle to hell with. Not only is it tonal, but there are sounds that literally DO NOT EXIST IN ENGLISH. I’m a white, native english speaker; it was a difficult jump. But I’ll tell you what, as difficult as it was for me to learn Chinese, I am forever completely awed by every person who has learnt English as a second language. Our dumbass language is fucking hard, guys, and our pronunciation doesn’t make sense on so many occasions.

For comparison though, when I go to Japan and speak Japanese, I cannot, for the life of me, make the correct r/l sound, because it sounds like both and neither of those letters at the same time. Honestly. I just can’t grasp it. So, here I am, speaking Japanese with what I imagine is a thick white-person accent. And the people? were all super nice and supportive and excited that we were speaking their language!!! Like…. white people are fuckin horrible to ESL speakers, but we struggle just as much, if not more, learning their languages. Especially Asian languages because they are so far removed from our own.

So yeah, don’t fucking make fun of people and don’t make these fucking jokes because I guarantee that you’re probably worse at it than they are.

fuck you.

Oh, I missed a part as well. Grammar. Different languages have different grammar and those that are new to learning English may use English words with their own grammar structure. I do this in Chinese quite a bit, or mash up the grammar because I have a general idea but there’s a part I’m not sure of so I take a guess. Asian languages have different grammar from each other let alone from English. So jokes like the “Me [action]” instead of “I [action]” possibly derive from a clash of grammar structure. ESL speakers aren’t dumb, they’re incredibly talented for speaking two languages, and often that’s the bare minimum! And English, again, is hard. My Thai friend would often ask for clarification on verb conjugation because English conjugation is the actual worst. She was so fucking smart and loved languages and had been learning most of her life, but she can’t know every single bit of English grammar, and I bet you don’t either.

Ok, I’m good.

I just… as a language student myself, who has lived in countries where I’m the immigrant speaking the foreign language, and have a huge number of ESL friends, I can’t help but get defensive on their behalf. And I am absolutely certain that my experiences as a foreigner were luxurious compared to those that travel to Western countries because I’m goddamn WHITE. So do not make your racist af jokes at the expense of ESL speakers because I will fight you - or they will fight you and I will cheer them on.

On Asian "accents"

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