<p>My DD is Asian, but I’m not. We both don’t feel offended by the video, and think it right that a person can be frustrated with rude Asian people who talk in the library.</p>
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<p>For me, the anger isn’t really so much the video. My reaction when I first saw it was, “Really?” The bigger issue in my opinion is what I wrote earlier: why is it that Asians are viewed as perpetual foreigners?</p>
<p>This is manifested in several ways. I’ve written about my being peeved at hearing the question, “Do you speak English?” or its subtler counterpart, “Your English is really good.” The former can be dismissed as simple ignorance, and in context, the latter is seldom, if ever, used maliciously, as the people who say it are honestly trying to give a compliment that happens to be ever-so-slightly offensive.</p>
<p>Worse than the former are people who pretend not to understand my English. A guy in my high school always claimed not to understand me and would only respond to anything I said to him with, “What?” (I hadn’t watched Pulp Fiction at the time, and even if I had, I doubt I would’ve had it in me to unleash a Jules on him.) I realized he honestly believed that my English was incomprehensible one day when he sat next to one of my friends who started joking with me. I joked back, and he laughed, but the guy asked my friend, “What did he just say?” My friend repeated my joke, word for word. Now, is it because my friend is more accepting of “accents”, or was the guy just being a jerk? Haven’t seen him since high school, so I’ll never know.</p>
<p>Going back to the “bigger issue,” in light of Wallace’s rant, who is she really referring to? The 229/1,552 students on F-1 visas? Or the 1,562/9,336 U.S. citizens and permanent residents of various Asian descents? Simply put, there aren’t enough international students to form a “horde.” She has to be referring to the 1,562/9,336, and that’s where we have a problem. Those 1,562/9,336 students are domestic, not foreign!</p>
<p>This “phenomenon” is not unique to the United States. In the 1990s, the Japanese government encouraged Brazilians of Japanese descent to “come home,” believing that since they were ethnic Japanese, they would assimilate more easily than Chinese and Korean immigrants. Boy were they wrong! These Brazilians, who had been viewed as Japanese all their lives, realized just how Brazilian they were when they left their home for Japan, and assimilation was far more difficult than the government ever expected. That’s the rub: for us, we’re only unquestionably American when we leave America!</p>
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<p>I must request clarification on this statement. To the extent that racism is “normal,” I agree. But I believe that a child who was properly raised knows how to suppress his inherent racism and how to dismiss it as irrational. I recall Anderson Cooper doing a segment for his show a few years back about how racist attitudes start early. Kids were shown pictures of identically drawn children colored from “white” to “dark black” and asked which students they would like to play with. The “shock factor” of the segment was the number of kids–arguably deliberately edited–who instantly picked the “whitest” picture. What’s more, both white and black children picked the “whitest” picture.</p>
<p>By contrast, there were about four kids who said that skin color did not matter. One appeared to have been carefully taught by his parents that we should not judge a man by the color of his skin but rather by the content of his character, as he demonstrated a surprising grasp (for a child) of Civil Rights Movement history. Could this (white) child have been inherently racist against blacks? It’s certainly possible. But the key is that he was taught that if he had such a view, it was irrational.</p>
<p>Everybody may be racist, but at the same time, everyone can learn how foolish and irrational racism is. Shakespeare’s critique of anti-Semitism in The Merchant of Venice can be applied to demonstrate how inane racist beliefs are.</p>
<p>I think that this rant of hers seems to have been precipitated by prolonged cell phone use in the library. I think that UCLA should have racial sensitivity lectures AND polite cell phone use lectures.</p>
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<p>IMHO, while this may be true…I’m a bit skeptical of it being provoked solely/mainly by prolonged cell phone use in the library considering the following:</p>
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<li><p>If UCLA is like most university libraries I’ve visited…including ones with large Asian/Asian-American populations, inappropriate cell phone users come in all racial and ethnic backgrounds…including those fitting her demographic. </p></li>
<li><p>She associated the problem only with “Asians” and repeated it throughout the video. One wonders if she has subconsciously or deliberately overlooked inappropriate cell phone users who happened to be of other race and ethnic groups…especially her own. </p></li>
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<p>So racism and bigotry against a targeted minority group in one country is fine and those who’ve been targeted should stop complaining if other individuals who happen to be part of that group who are majorities in another country commit the same BS there? </p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I find the underlying logic here to be quite unsound…</p>
<p>Wasn’t there a saying along the lines of “Two wrongs…”?</p>
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<p>Hmm, the “I have a friend who is of [racial minority group targeted by racist language/actions] and he/she is not offended so it must be ok” mentality that so many who faced prejudice/discrimination have recounted has been used by the socially dominant majority to discount their experiences. </p>
<p>FYI, no one person can or should ever be put into a position to be a spokesperson of their racial/ethnic group. </p>
<p>Your DD certainly does not speak for my older Asian-American friends who grew up having the same racial taunt Wallace used in her video as school kids during the 1950’s and '60s. She also does not speak for older cousins who experienced the same in the 60’s-80’s. She certainly does not speak for me nor other commenters here who had similar experiences.</p>
<p>I see cell phones used on the road by drivers where drivers know that distracted driving is dangerous, and, in some states, illegal. If you can’t control cell phone use by drivers, I don’t see how you’re going to control it in a library without electronic jammers.</p>
<p>Regarding the “perpetual foreigner” treatment, my hunch on that is that it has to do with the Chinese language. Here in CA, it is quite common to hear people of every race converse in Spanish, but I have never heard anyone but an Asian person speak Chinese.</p>
<p>I think there may be a perception that the Chinese language is so difficult that anyone who is speaking it must have either learned it by living in China or from their parents at home who grew up in China, and thus are recent immigrants or visitors. I remember being told decades ago that the Chinese language is a “language of the people,” meaning that no matter how hard a non-native speaker tries to learn it, they never will be fluent. idk if this is true or not.</p>
<p>Adding: Because someone might mistaken you for a visitor or “foreigner” doesn’t mean they don’t like you.</p>
<p>The fact that Ms. Wallace imitated the Asian cell-phone users as speaking in Chinese and not in English indicates to me that they probably commonly speak Chinese on the phone and maybe on campus.</p>
<p>one thing that has always been hard for me to really comprehend, as a WASP and a member of the dominant class, is that my norm is not the only norm… that “my people” are not the center of the universe… and that other norms are just as valid as my own</p>
<p>or even more valid?</p>
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<p>I liked this post.</p>
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<p>I learned this quite early on, as I lived in Hawaii for years in my youth. People often assumed that I was a tourist, and I knew it was because I am caucasian, and it would bug me but I always looked at it as a reflection on the speaker’s ignorance, and not the people of the entire State of Hawaii. I did not even think of it as “racist,” (is being a tourist inherently negative? - i don’t think so), but as “racial” - as in, oh she’s white so she must be a tourist like most white people here.</p>
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<p>I expect, and hope!! to be learning to be more sensitive and aware till the day I die. I am still a work in progress :)</p>
<p>I have learned a lot on this thread. Thank you to the posters who have spent the time to write and explain what this incident represents to you.</p>
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<ol>
<li>Chinese aren’t the only Asians.</li>
<li>I don’t think we have “preserved” the language in a heritage sense any better (or worse) than Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, and so forth.</li>
<li>Chinese isn’t harder than Japanese or Korean for an American to learn. The State Department categorizes Chinese, Japanese, and Korean as Category IV languages, which are the hardest to learn for native English speakers due to</li>
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<p>a. Completely different writing system (Chinese characters, hiragana, hangeul)
b. Completely different origin of words (Sinitic / Altaic as opposed to Indo-European)</p>
<p>Spanish is part of the Category I languages, which are the easiest to learn. It is largely written in the same alphabet as ours and shares a common origin of words via Latin, thanks to the Normans. If you saw "tel</p>
<p>fab,
I don’t know if you are picking apart my posts to start an argument or to be informative. </p>
<p>Regarding what I wrote about the Chinese language contributing to “perpetual foreigner” status, what is your point? Are you saying that this could not possibly be true, or what?</p>
<p>Obviously there is more than one Asian language, and it is interesting that there are fluent non-native Chinese speakers in China, but what does that have to do with the “perpetual foreigner” perception that you hold?</p>
<p>Let me get this straight: Does it show “American Manners” to be annoyed and then post on You Tube in your spare time? </p>
<p>And my big question, since I’m seeing a lot exceptional kids get rejected by UCLA right now, how did she get in???</p>
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<p>My ancestry is a mixture of Finnish, Irish, and Welsh, and I “grow crops” --ie, have a vegetable garden–in my back yard and also raise chickens.</p>
<p>Regarding the “perpetual foreigner” thing, I’m wondering if this has something to do with how recent the waves of immigration are. There was a time when people of Irish, Italian, or German descent, for example, were assumed to be “foreigners.” Now, it is assumed that they were born here. Of course, we all know that there were prior waves of immigration from China and Japan, but the waves of immigration from Asia–and from Latin America–are still happening NOW. Which means that a significant # of people who appear to be from those groups ARE immigrants rather than native-born.</p>
<p>Some of us with continue to think “perpetual foreigner” because the Asian population is low in our geographic areas. That’s life.</p>
<p>I work with quite a few people from India. The accents can drive me nuts. With some, I have to turn all other systems off to wade through the accents. Because of my environment, when I encounter someone without an accent I am surprised.</p>
<p>One thing that surprised me. I’ve been working with one guy for over 20 years. His accent is one of the worst. I’d assume by now he’d be tired of people asking him to repeat himself. Management (another Indian guy) even sent him to a class to ease up the accent. It made no difference. The Management guy said that my co-worker doesn’t hear his accent. BTW, the management Indian guy had no accent what-so-ever. He did talk very fast though and we teased him about.</p>
<p>“no matter how hard a non-native speaker tries to learn it, they never will be fluent.”</p>
<p>Untrue. This is not true of any human language. However, it is true of all human languages that speakers first exposed to the language as adults generally retain an accent no matter how fluent they become or how many decades they use that language exclusively.</p>
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<p>I disagree with parts of your post, which led to my reply, but my intent is not to be “argumentative.”</p>
<p>I mentioned Category IV to show that Chinese is not any “harder” than Japanese or Korean is for an American to learn, and hence, ALL of these Asians could be viewed as “perpetual foreigners” simply because they may be more likely to speak these difficult languages than others, not just ethnic Chinese.</p>
<p>Your explanation of the “perpetual foreigner” issue appeared to be as follows:</p>
<p>Fact – Chinese (and Japanese and Korean) is a difficult language for native English speakers to learn.</p>
<p>Observation – Few non-Chinese speak Mandarin in California.</p>
<p>Conclusion – Anyone who can speak the language fluently must be a foreigner (i.e. Chinese).</p>
<p>You fairly assume that others see it as you do, leading to others’ potentially viewing Asians as “perpetual foreigners”, and contrast who speaks Mandarin with who speaks Spanish, which you claim is more broad.</p>
<p>Well, it looks like you’re indirectly suggesting that there are two solutions to this phenomenon. First, simply have more non-Chinese learn Mandarin (cf. Spanish). Alternatively, we ethnic Chinese can simply stop speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and so forth. I doubt that the second would do anything, but the first might.</p>
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<p>Why do you doubt that? When you hear a White person speaking fluent Swedish on the phone, do you think it quite possible that they are either recent immigrants or visitors? I do, because very few Americans have the opportunity to learn the Swedish language fluently unless they are from Sweden or it is spoken in their homes growing up.</p>
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<p>I agree.</p>
<p>Re: “foreigner”</p>
<p>I was once on a business trip to a part of the US where there were few non-white people and few foreigners. Some of the few were the staff at a restaurant we stopped by to eat at.</p>
<p>In the restaurant, the waiter (who was actually one of the few non-white people in the area) asked where I was from. I don’t think he was expecting me to name the US city that I was traveling from.:)</p>
<p>Is it possible we are incorrectly judging citizenship status, when we hear someone speaking a language other than English, because of the assumption that most everyone in this country only knows their native language, if it happens to be English, while most everyone (that I happen to know :)) in other parts of the world more commonly speak several languages?</p>