Kuma chap. 4 & 5

When I started to read chap. 4 of Kuma’s book, it reminded me of some bad memory, because one of my friend was died by ‘the crash of Korean air Flight in Guam in August, 1997’. And I was so shocked to know the Seattle Times’ interpretation of that accident, which was reported the co-pilot’s deference to the captain pilot’s authority, in other words, the Korean cultural factor as the crucial crash reason. It meant my friend was died by our traditional culture. I couldn’t believe it. It’s non-sense. What kind of idea (stereotype) do they have on Asian people?

In 2003, I audited one of Asian American Studies classes in UCLA. One of Asian American students said her routine happening on the bus to the class. In Los Angeles, California, there is a good transportation system. So many tourists and international students usually take the bus as their transportation for the sightseeing or going to school . One day, on her way to school, one old white man sat on her next and asked to her, “Are you a student in UCLA?” “Yes.” “What’s your major?” “(she answered for that question)” “ Oh, interesting, in that part, what do you specifically study?” “(she explained what she studied in her classes)” “Oh, by the way, your English is very good. Where are you from? “ “ I’m from here” “Of course, you are from here. You are a UCLA student. But you know what I mean. What is your original nationality?” “I’m American.” “ No, you don’t understand what my question is. My question is ‘where are you and your family from?’ ” “I think you don’t understand my answer for your question. I’m American. And I think you speak English very well, too.”

In related to above happening, a similar but different happening happened to my husband. A few years ago, he worked for the English department at one of universities in Korea. When he went to the department office to make some copy for class, he met a newly-employed native speaking professor. They shook hands and talked. A few minutes later, the new professor said to him, “ You speak English very well. Where are you from?” The question made my husband embarrassed but other people including several secretaries and other native speaking professors in the office bursted into a laughter. When my husband answered for that question with “Oh, .. I’m from here, Korea”, one of other native professors said, “Hey, Steve(my husband’s English name). Don’t be confused. It’s a kind of the best praise for your English proficiency.”

Both happenings above show a way of NS’s typical thinking on NNS English (speaking) proficiency. The new professor and the old white man have a stereotype- NNS have a deficient competence on English. By that reason, they were impressed by coming across NNS people (they think) with good English.

I think the first one must be considered as the more serious problem than the second one in terms of ‘why the old man thought the UCLA student as a NNS’. It is so obvious. She has an Asian face, skin. So the old man who even lived in LA, such a multiethnic city, misconceived her as an international student. And the basic reason for him to give her questions is that he wanted to hear some exotic stories from her. But she didn’t give them to him and even she was above his expectation. So he tried to find out his desirable answer from her by continuing his questions to her about ‘original nationality’. But she gave him a counterpart as she said, “I’m American. And I think you speak English very well, too.”

This case shows that even though she is an American who was born and has lived in American society, mainstream doesn’t think her as a member of them. It means, although there have been processes of assimilation of Asian and their descendants into American society and mainstream, with the invented image of ‘the model minority’, which was made by the mainstream aiming at controlling the minority groups like Asian and African-American, there is always ‘a glass of ceiling’ and ‘stereotype’, which the minority can’t reach and change the border line of mainstream. Where, when, and how can Other, like the UCLA student and us (if we can call it), find real two-way interaction with target languge groups?