Broken English

I remember sitting in the passenger seat when my mom and I heard the news of the shooting of Jordan Edwards, a 15-year-old African-American boy who was viciously murdered by a police officer. I asked my mom, “Do you think this would ever happen to us if we got stopped by a policeman?” My mom responded, “No, I would just speak broken English, and he’d passed by.” I was stunned at her remark. Asians could win the benefit of the doubt when we talk in broken English, making us appear innocent and helpless, a stereotype that my mom embraced. Just a few days before this incident, I felt outcasted in my school when I wasn’t allowed to be in MOCA (Men of Color Association) for being simply “not a person of color.” Since I was a minority just like any members of MOCA, I resented the members for not including me in the group. For my whole life, I was always aware of my minority status. To me, it was unfair that I did not belong to MOCA. However, Lin’s article helped me realize the unusual situation that Asian Americans were placed in society. I agreed with Lin's statement about how “...[she experiences] a host of disadvantages as an Asian American woman, but [she] can’t deny that [she] also [has] some privileges.” Unlike the African-Americans or the Middle Eastern students in MOCA, I am not a topic of the question when talking about travel ban issues, or a recipient of side glances when I walk to the subways in Boston. When we face difficult situations, we invoke the race card by embracing a stereotype like broken English to display innocence and helplessness as my mother had mentioned in the car ride. Reading through Lin's article, I realized that it is time for Asian Americans to get out of their stereotype-embracing bubble and even stop speaking broken English.

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