Beyond Yellow English: Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Asian Pacific America (Book)

Book Citation:

Reyes, A., & Lo, A. (2009). Beyond Yellow English: Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Asian Pacific America. Oxford University Press.

1. Stereotypes in General
   1. Hillary Putnam defines a stereotype as “a standardized description of features of the kind that are typical, or ‘normal,’ or at any rate stereotypical. The central features of the stereotype generally are criteria—features which in normal situations constitute ways of recognizing if a thing belongs to the kind or, at least, necessary conditions (or probabilistic necessary conditions) for membership of the kind” (Reyes and Lo, 43).
      1. Through this description, stereotypes are, at best, mere approximations of “normalcy” and are descriptors that are not always reliable (Reyes and Lo, 43).
      2. While stereotypes are useful for objects and things with typically less variation in appearance when compared to people, the larger use of stereotypes in today’s world is to judge, oppress, or dehumanize other people (Reyes and Lo, 43).
      3. People need stereotypes to navigate the world successfully, given that people tend to interact with representations of a reality (like a stereotype), rather than an objective reality (Reyes and Lo, 43).
      4. Stereotypes are not mere mental phenomena: they are equivocally and consensually shared within and throughout a society in order to classify and organize the environment that a society lives in (Reyes and Lo, 45).
   2. Stereotypes of Asians (specifically Asian Americans) in media are often conflicting: Asian American men are depicted as asexual and villainous characters, while Asian American women are fetishized as being wickedly erotic and submissive (Reyes and Lo, 44).
      1. Renee Tajima calls this phenomenon the “dragon lady/lotus blossom dichotomy” (Reyes and Lo, 44).
      2. Stereotypes for Asian Americans generally fall into two categories: “widespread typifications,” or a widely-known stereotype (e.g., Asian store owner), and “local typifications, or a less well-known stereotype (e.g., Asian van driver) (Reyes and Lo, 45).
   3. Recently, stereotypes have been reappropriated to be a source of positive progress in order to position people of color and minorities in socially meaningful manners as a basis for accomplishing action, not unlike the reappropriation of racial slurs, like the n-word and “chink,” into solidarity terms (Reyes and Lo, 44).
2. Stereotypes and Phenomena in the World
   1. Metapragmatic
      1. Based on Silverstein’s definition, a metapragmatic phenomena “must take as their object pragmatic signs” (Reyes and Lo, 46).
         1. A pragmatic sign is any behaviorally recognizable commonly recurring action, such as having clearly melanated skin, having an accent, or using a distinctive form of speech (Reyes and Lo, 46).
         2. A metapragmatic stereotype both recognizes and enables pragmatic behavior such as reinforcing social hierarchies and standards, allowing for the generation of behavior like celebrating the color of a person’s skin or denying them entry into a restaurant because of it (Reyes and Lo, 46).
3. The Model Minority
   1. The “model minority” stereotype came to be due to the fact that Asian Americans were depicted as having successfully assimilated as a way to contain and set a standard for what Robert Lee calls “the red menace of communism, the black menace or racial integration, and the white menace of homosexuality” (Reyes and Lo, 44).
      1. The model minority title was used to silence accusations by communities and people of color against hatefulness and discrimination, acting as a instigator between minorities in order to weaken and destroy any semblance of unity between groups (Reyes and Lo, 44).
      2. The model minority myth upholds white American ideologies of meritocracy and individualism while downplaying and ignoring the severity of racial inequality, thus allowing whites to remain at the peak of the racial hierarchy in America (Reyes and Lo, 44).
4. Against White Racism
   1. Stereotypes and metapragmatic phenomena reinforce white supremacy and hypermasculinity, a prime example being the stereotype of an “Asian van driver,” being depicted as “effeminate and unsexy” (Reyes and Lo, 86).
      1. Asian, black, and Hispanic/Latino men provide a steady base for which white males can compare themselves with and ultimately “be better than” (Reyes and Lo, 86).
   2. Black exceptionalism is the thought that African Americans were specifically and especially damaged by economic loss and the social degradation caused by slavery and Jim Crow laws (Reyes and Lom 86).
      1. Of all ethnic and racial minorities living in America, African Americans by far tend to experience the most microaggressions and were the only race to ever undergo the “one drop rule” (Reyes and Lo, 86).
      2. While black exceptionalism has shown itself to hold much validity, using a larger, much simpler division between “white” and “not white” is proven to be useful in the world of politics and statistics (Reyes and Lo, 86).
         1. Despite many differences in terms of unique oppression, as outlined by black exceptionalism, people of color in America tend to have similar experiences with racism and historical context, which gives reason for interminority alliances, either politically or socially (Reyes and Lo, 86).
            1. Asian Americans, more often than not, are found to experience this white versus not white dilemma. Some Asian American children in public high schools have noted a “choice” in social identity at the school: they must either be “hyperwhite” nerds or align themselves with a gangster identity parallel to African American stereotypes (Reyes and Lo, 87).
            2. Although not to the same extent, Asian Americans, like Latinos, blacks, and Native Americans, have experienced housing theft, anti-immigration laws, and racially motivated violence by both civilians and police officers (Reyes and Lo, 87).
               1. Cau Bich Tran, a 25-year-old Vietnamese immigrant with two children, was shot to death in her apartment by San Jose police officer Chad Marshall. Officer Marshall received no punishment for what was, at best, a racially and stereotype-motivated manslaughter, and at worse, pure murder. (Reyes and Lo, 87).
            3. Given the modern stereotype of an Asian brainiac with exemplary grades, whites are anxious that because Asian students tend to do better than average on the SAT, Asians are thus dominating admissions and taking slots that are “meant” for white students (Reyes and Lo, 88).
               1. Many Asian Americans are of the belief that post-affirmative action criteria, which downplay the importance of a good SAT score, specifically targets Asians, who have a tendency to do well in the SAT (Reyes and Lo, 88)
      3. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic have shown that even across widely diverse minority groups in America, “Each group is depicted, in virtually every epoch, in terms that can only be described as demeaning or worse” (Reyes and Lo, 86).
         1. Asian Americans, despite the title of model minority and “honorary whites,” have and still are targets of the same brands of racism that affect other racial minorities in America (Reyes and Lo, 88).