Accent-based Discrimination against Asians in the United States

It is always difficult for immigrants to settle in a new unknown country, especially if they are nonnative speakers of the local language. Sometimes this can lead to circumstances in which these immigrants are subject to negative experiences, such as discrimination. This is also what happens to Asian immigrants who come to the U.S. These people have been discriminated against for many years, just because of the way they speak English. Asian immigrants have been subject to many negative experiences in this country, such as being made fun of their accent in American movies or on tv shows or being the main topic of a political advertisement in which they are portrayed negatively. Even in their professional careers are Asian immigrants less likely to progress to higher positions. All this negativity just because of the way they speak their English.

In this essay I will be focusing on how accent discrimination impacts the life of Asian people in America, when looking for sources I found that the part of this group’s life which was impacted the most because of discrimination was their work life. Akomolafe Soji, in his peer reviewed article, The Invisible Minority: Revisiting the Debate On Foreign-Accented Speakers And Upward Mobility In The Workplace, addresses the topic of discrimination against foreign accented speakers in the workplace and argues that these individuals are severely underrepresented and marginalized in the workplace. He supports this claim by stating that there are millions of foreign-born Americans who come to the US in search of “The American Dream” but are unable to do so because they are being discriminated against mostly because of their accent. He also states that even though there are laws against discrimination in the workplace based on accent, he feels that they cannot be enforced as long as it is up to the employers to determine what an acceptable accent is (Soji). Akomolafe’s purpose is to bring this topic of discrimination to light in order to get more people to be aware of this issue.

Even though Akomolafe states that the laws against accent-based discrimination might not be able to be enforced, there are records of Asian immigrants enforcing this law against their potential employers. One of these cases was mentioned by Samuel Cacas in his article, The Language of Hate, he addresses the topic of the growing number of complaints against accent-based discrimination in the workplace. He supports this topic by giving multiple examples of court cases in which this was the case, these examples however are not limited to Asian immigrants but also include cases of several different ethnicities. He did give an example which links well to this essay and my thesis and that was about a Filipino American nurse who challenged a California hospital’s English-only policy and a Miami based company that was charged with cooling foreign applicants as having heavy or light accents (Cacas).

As we can see based on these sources accent-based discrimination against Asians is a growing issue in the United States. As noted by Akomolafe this is an issue that needs to be discussed more widely and should be a top priority for lawmakers in this country. But the workplace is not the only area in which Asians face discrimination, Asians are heavily discriminated against in American media be it in movies or television shows or in YouTube videos and ads.

Safwat Saleem, a Pakistani-American visual artist, in his TedTalk, Why I Keep Speaking Up, Even When People Mock My Accent, published in 2016, addresses the topic of negativity against people who speak English with an accent and argues that the reason this happens is because people aren’t familiar with the idea that a language can be spoken in a different manner. He supports his claim by telling a story about how colors were mislabeled in ancient texts, just because of the fact that they hadn’t yet discovered how to make those colors and thus hadn’t named them yet. He also told us about personal negative experiences he had when he started his career and people heard his accent (Saleem). Saleem’s purpose is to inform us how he dealt with this negativity and to make us aware that this is an important issue. He does this to try and make people realize that this should not happen and that people who do this should change their ways.

 While I can agree with the fact that people who discriminate based on accents might be doing it because they aren’t used to English being spoken in a different manner, I do wonder how long it will take for people to see accented English as “normal”. A large number of Chinese immigrants came to the U.S. all the way back in the 1850s, the last big influx of Asian immigrants to the United States was in the 1960s and 1970s. This tells me that Asian immigrants have been a part of the United States’ society for at least 60 years and the fact that this group of people are still facing discrimination based on their accents makes me wonder if this will ever change. One thing that might be keeping this discrimination alive is the way in which Asians are being portrayed in movies and television shows in America.

Supporting my thesis, Shilpa Davé in her book, Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film, addresses the topic of stereotypes of South Asian characters in American film and television and argues that accents are being used to racialize South Asians beyond visual appearance. She believes accents in American film and television are used to represent racial difference, national origin, and belonging, as well as distinctions of class and privilege. She supports this claim by providing many examples of character portrayals of South Asians in American film and television, she also tells us about how South Asian American actors are dealing with this issue and who are pushing back against these stereotypes (Davé, Indian Accents : Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film). Davé’s purpose is to highlight these stereotypes of Asians in American film and television and to let people know how this is limiting Asian actors in the United States.

A couple of years after the release of her book Shilpa Davé published a peer reviewed article, Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian American Studies, she addresses the topic of stereotypes Asian Americans face when going into the tv and film industry and argues that this shouldn’t be the case anymore and she believes that the representation of Asian Americans in the media should change. She supports this claim by giving examples of how Asian Americans are currently being cast in tv shows or movies and telling us about the difficulties Asian Americans face when being selected for an acting role. According to the author Asian Americans are being limited to select types of roles such as sidekick, scientist, spiritual storyteller, foreign immigrant, and for comic relief. She also highlights the importance of accents when actors are being cast for movies or shows (Davé, Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian American Studies.). Davé’s purpose is to bring these issues American Asians face in the media to light in order to change the perspective in which Asian Americans are currently being viewed in the media industry.

The most interesting part to me is the fact that these two sources were written 4 years apart and yet Shilpa Davé still managed to find new examples of stereotypical portrayals of Asians in American film and television. However, in her latest publication she did manage to find a couple of examples in which Asian Americans were given central roles in television series and were not subject to stereotypical accents. I fully agree with her topic and the fact that the author came to the same conclusion all those years later tells me that this issue isn’t one that will go away easily, some progress has been made but that still is not enough to fully erase the Asian stereotypes in American film and television. One place where, in my opinion, accent-based discrimination against Asians definitely should not be present, is in American politics.

Steven Yaccino and Jonathan Weisman, in their news article, Commercial Is Called Racially Insensitive, addresses the topic of a racially insensitive political ad which was aired by a Michigan based American politician and argues that the ad was full of Asian stereotypes. The authors support this claim by giving an example of an old ad which received backlash because of its racial insensitivity and also by including a statement by a non-profit organization, Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote, in which they criticize the ad for encouraging “anti-Asian sentiment” and note the many contributions American Asians have made to the economy in the state of Michigan (Yaccino and Weisman). The authors’ purpose is to inform readers of this matter in order to make people aware that this is wrong and shouldn’t be the norm.

Another instance in which Asians were portrayed with stereotypes and mocked because of their accent in American politics was in a political ad by Theodor Seuss Geisel also known as Dr. Seuss. The ad portrays Asians, in this case Japanese people, very negatively. This wasn’t the only political ad made by Dr. Seuss, according to NBC News he published more than 400 political ads between 1941 and 1943 and many of these ads displayed anti-Japanese racism. As you are able to see, Dr. Seuss purposely misspelled the word “Very” in order to mock the way the Japanese spoke.

I firmly believe that accent-based discrimination against Asian people in America or even any other form of discrimination should not be anywhere near U.S. politics. As far as I can tell there haven’t been many incidents of accent-based discrimination against Asians in America in recent times, I believe the reason for this is that the people in the United States are quick to call out and criticize any instances when this is the case. We can see that this is what happened when the Michigan based politician aired a racially insensitive ad, he immediately received backlash from many different groups. In the case of Dr. Seuss not only did he use anti-Asian racism in political ads, he also depicted Asians using stereotypes in his early work. He did, however, change his drawings many years later in order to remove these stereotypes.

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After viewing all of the sources with all of their examples and stories I am able to conclude that accent-based discrimination against Asians in the United States is an ongoing issue people in America face. It partly stems from negative relations this country has had with countries in Asia, especially during WWII, but it also stems from native English speakers in the U.S. who are unwilling to accept this new way of speaking English. These acts of discrimination are less seen in American politics, but Asians in the U.S. confront this issue daily in their work life and when viewing American media such as movies or television shows. I personally believe that a major leap in the right direction can be taken when accent-based stereotypes against Asians are not depicted anymore in American film and television shows. I think that if we keep differentiating Asian characters in movies and shows by having them speak with a different accent, we are just going to keep on highlighting and accentuating the existence of these accents. With reference to accent-based discrimination in the workplace, I believe that lawmakers in this country should take strict action against this issue and revise the current laws to make sure there aren’t any loopholes employers can use to discriminate against those with accents.

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Works Cited

Cacas, Samuel. “The Language of Hate.” Human Rights 22.1 (1995): 30-49.

Davé, Shilpa. Indian Accents : Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2013.

—. “Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian American Studies.” Cinema Journal 56.3 (2017): 142-147.

Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss Geisel. <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/dr-seuss-got-away-anti-asian-racism-long-rcna381>.

Saleem, Safwat. “Why I Keep Speaking Up Even When People Mock My Accent” TedTalk. July 2016.

Soji, Akomolafe. “THE INVISIBLE MINORITY: REVISITING THE DEBATE ON FOREIGN-ACCENTED SPEAKERS AND UPWARD MOBILITY IN THE WORKPLACE.” Journal of Cultural Diversity 20.1 (2013): 7-14.

Yaccino, Steven and Jonathan Weisman. “Commercial is Called Racially Insensitive.” The New York Times (2012): 14.