It is an unfortunate fact, but comparatively little sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological research has been done on Asian Pacific American (APA) communities.
As the editors of Beyond Yellow English, Adrienne Lo and Angela Reyes, note in their introduction, even “[i]n descriptions of ethnic and regional dialects across the United States… Asian Pacific Americans are notably absent (Metcalf Reference Metcalf2000; Wolfram and Schilling-Estes Reference Wolfram and Schilling-Estes2006; Wolfram and Ward Reference Wolfram and Ward2006)” (p. 3). Explanations for this significant gap in scholarship read more like excuses that rely on old stereotypes of the inscrutable Asian and closed off Asian society, citing “[t]he difficulties of an outsider doing fieldwork within, for example, the ‘Chinatown’ areas found in many large urban centers [which] may have contributed to the lack of research on these communities” (Fought Reference Fought, Chambers, Trudgill and Schilling-Estes2002:465).
Fortunately, with efforts from researchers who are both insiders and outsiders, this gap is beginning to close, both in the quantitative sociolinguistic tradition (e.g., Hall-Lew Reference Hall-Lew2009; Wong Reference Wong2007) and more qualitative, interaction-focused studies (e.g., Chen Reference Chen2008; Williams Reference Williams2008; Reyes Reference Reyes2007; Shin and Milroy Reference Shin and Milroy2000; Lo Reference Lo1999), along with heritage and second language learning studies (e.g., He and Xiao Reference He and Xiao2008) and studies about language attitudes towards APAs (e.g., Lindemann Reference Lindemann2003). Beyond Yellow English, the blurb of which bills it as “the first edited volume to examine issues of language, identity, and culture among the rapidly growing Asian Pacific American population,” is the latest contribution to these growing efforts.
Developed originally from two sessions at the American Anthropological Association's annual meetings, along with a special issue of Pragmatics, Beyond Yellow English is a collection of reprints, revisions of previously published articles, and newly published work. The volume's focus is locally emergent APA identities in interaction, concentrating on how “the situated unfoldings of identity” reveal “how interactants position themselves relative to others and to the discourses that circulate through mass media, institutions, and everyday contexts” (Lo and Reyes, p. 9). Editors Reyes and Lo have deliberately selected articles examining a large range of APA ethnic groups (from Korean Americans to Samoan Americans, from Filipino Canadians to Indian Americans), data sets (life stories, naturally-occurring casual conversations, reflective autobiographical essays, sociolinguistic interviews, classroom interaction, public performances, and more), and methodological approaches (including conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis) to meet this purpose.
The collection starts with an opening essay, “Introduction: On Yellow English and other perilous terms,” in which the editors carefully lay out some of the thorny issues involved with language research on APAs: invisibility, the limitations of “Yellow English,” and the racializing and restricting discourses of “forever foreigner” and “honorary white.” The volume's 17 research articles are then organized into 5 thematic sections, each culminating with a commentary article.
Part I, “Interactional positionings of selves and identities,” takes a close look at how individuals make aspects of theirs and others' identities as APAs, or more accurately, widely and locally circulating categories associated with their race or ethnicity, relevant at the level of the interaction. These categories are quite diverse, ranging from the “model-minority nerd” and “gangster” for Laotian American teen girls (in an article by Mary Bucholtz), to “Chinese restaurant owner” and “Asian minivan driver” as locally construed by Asian American youth in Philadelphia (Angela Reyes), to “good” versus “morally suspect” student in a Korean heritage language school (Adrienne Lo).
The chapters in Part II, “Discursive constitutions of groups and communities,” examine how APAs align themselves with certain communities, particularly through the discursive construction and understanding of group practices and group membership. The groups and individuals considered in this section are again wide ranging: from the work choice life stories of Filipino Canadian immigrants (Bonnie McElhinny, et al) to discursive reflections on what it means to wear a turban for Punjabi Sikhs in Los Angeles (Wendy L. Klein), from how Korean American camp counselors discursively construct and modify the categories of “Korean” and “Korean American” (M. Agnes Kang) to who counts as “Local Japanese” or “Japanese American” (as opposed to “tourist” or “recent immigrant”) in Hawai'i (Asuka Suzuki).
Those in Part III, “Languages in contact,” bring linguistic anthropological approaches to the study of codeswitching, analyzing how linguistic innovation and creativity can lead to language change in situations as different as Korean international students determining who is a legitimate English speaker (Joseph Sung-Yul Park) to the cultural implications behind not integrating Samoan into otherwise English discourse and vice versa (Alessandro Duranti and Jennifer F. Reynolds). Additional chapters look at indexical order and the meaning behind the insertion of English me in otherwise Japanese discourse (Emi Morita) and Korean American children's creative use and avoidance of Korean address terms (Juyoung Song).
Part IV, “Linguistic practices in media contexts,” considers the role of language and identity in APA-produced and consumed mass media. The articles in this section range from an examination of the use of “Mock Asian” by Korean American comedian Margaret Cho (Elaine W. Chun), to the stigmatization of Filipinos and Filipino “accents” in local Hawaiian comedy (Roderick N. Labrador), to the ways that Bollywood films are an empowering resource for Indian American, or Desi, teens (Shalini Shankar).
Finally, the chapters in Part V, “Educational institutions and language acquisition,” analyze how educational contexts for language learning can be sites where APA identities are molded and produced, whether for Asian American college students reflecting on heritage language loss and English language acquisition (Leanne Hinton), Hawaiian students labeled as ESL-learners determining who is “Local” and who is “FOB” (“fresh-off-the-boat”) (Steven Talmy), or a Chinese heritage language teacher and her students displaying (dis)affiliating stances with social role and ethnic identity through repair sequences, script choice, and pronoun choice (Agnes Weiyun He).
As with many edited volumes, some chapters come across as more polished and developed than others, but this is not a glaring flaw in the collection as a whole. The editors themselves cite a few gaps in the collection's focus. Some ethnicities, mixed or hapa APAs, APAs beyond the first or second generation, transnational APAs, and those in rural communities, are neglected or underrepresented. Indeed, 13 of the 17 articles focus on APAs in California or Hawaii, and all 17 are focused on APAs in urban areas. Admittedly this is where the large majority of APAs reside, but how are the lives and language of APAs in, for example, Southern, Midwestern, or rural areas, different? In reality, however, these omissions are not so much problems rather than directions for much needed future sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological research on APA communities: a first collection on APA language research can only accomplish so much.
The editors' excellent introduction and the commentators' section-ending essays (by Jane H. Hill, Niko Besnier, Asif Agha, Susan Gal, and Bonnie Urciuoli) are all thought-provoking and stimulating and work well to unify the seemingly disparate approaches and multiple foci of the research articles. The essays not only give the requisite summation of each section's contributions and themes, but also raise important questions that go beyond the specific focus of the articles: how does everyday white racism play a role not only in APAs' lives, but the lives of everyone (Jane H. Hill)? what political “erasures and elisions” are involved in the creation of the APA category, as with any other massive ethnic label (Susan Gal)? how is APA identity created in relation to other racialized groups (Adrienne Lo and Angela Reyes)?
While this book seems to target researchers with an interest in APA studies, it will certainly also be of use to scholars with theoretical interests spanning any aspect of interaction- and identity-focused sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. Many of the articles, and the book as a whole, would be useful and approachable for undergraduate and graduate courses in linguistics, anthropology, American studies, education, media studies, and more.
Even though more than half of the research articles are revisions or reprints of previously published material, compiling them, along with a handful of new articles, in a single easily found volume is an important contribution. Crucially, as editors Lo and Reyes and commentator Gal point out, the act of collecting and publishing a volume on APA language research in the first place is in itself a significant political act: it is a call for further research on a group that previously was considered invisible or inaccessible. Despite a title that at first glance would seem to place this volume solely in APA studies, this volume is a valuable collection of scholarly work that moves linguistic anthropological and sociolinguistic approaches to Asian Pacific America beyond the stereotype of the inscrutable, closed-off, and unapproachable Asian. This book is a significant move “beyond” the restrictive stereotype of “Yellow English.”
