HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: timlee@public.btr.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: English Only Movement
Date: 14 Apr 92 04:38:36 GMT
Reply-To: timlee@btr.com (Timothy J. Lee)
Followup-To: soc.culture.asian.american

mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day) writes:
|
|   timlee@public.btr.com writes:
|
|   It is also
|   obvious that English is not a static language, and any attempt to
|   define it or make some variant of it the "official" language will
|   not stand the test of time (read the Declaration of Independence
|   or the Constitution and compare with present day usage).  Thus
|   the proposed laws promoted by these groups don't really do anything
|   useful.
|
|This is a straw man.  The question is whether government services
|should be provided in languages other than English, not whether
|government services should be provided in some fixed dialect of
|English.  The availability of literature, services, ballots, etc. in
|non-English languages is a relatively recent development.  It seems to
|the US English people as though the government is going out of its way
|to make it easy to live in the U.S. without learning English, which
|would be dubious public policy.

Well, then instead of saying that English is the "official" language,
why not just make clear and simple laws which state what languages
the government should provide its services in.  Simply stating an
"official" language doesn't say much, leaving people to try to infer
things, usually at significant legal expense.  (There is, however,
still the definition problem.)

|   However, other items on their agendas might not be as null.
|   US English has taken a doctrinaire stand on bilingual education,
|   specifically opposing anything other than ESL.  
|
|The issues here are not as clear as you describe.  Bilingual education
|as actually implemented in many schools is a cruel fraud that does not
|lead to meaningful English competence.  

I am well aware that many bilingual education programs suck.  But
the dividing line between the good and bad ones does not fall neatly
between the high-speed ESL programs and the more gradual programs.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: ajh@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Hu)
Subject: Re: Reclaiming our heritage (was: Oriental bias against Indians...)
Keywords: culture, heritage
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 22:15:04 GMT

In article <1992Apr12.074803.13635@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> hyx1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Harry Y Xu) writes:
	[Discussion on "reclaiming" "lost" heritage deleted.]
>
>	Nth-generation Asian Americans?  N must be = to 1 or 2.

	[More cultural reclamation discussion deleted.]
>
>====================================>.sig <====================================
>  Harry Xu  (KB2LHA)	   Internet:  hyx1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
	[Long sig extolling the virtues of running and ham radio deleted.]
>====================================> end <====================================

What we have here is a clear example of a thoughtful and intelligent
person falling victim to the distorted world view of the American media.
(Join the club.)  Anyway, the general wisdom is that N goes up to 7 or 8
for Chinese Americans and 5 or 6 for Japanese Americans.  Roger Tang gives
20-30% N>2 in another post.  The restrictive immigration laws didn't really
kick in until the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924.  Before then, Asians
were being imported to do shit work on the railroad, but many went on
to become pioneering farmers on the West Coast.

The story the media likes to portray, though, is that there once were
some Evil Savage Indians, but the Noble Brave European Explorers civilized
them to death while keeping a sharp managerial hand above the Dumb Black
Slaves.  Very recently, though, our Great Aryan Nation Under God has been
facing an onslaught of Illegal Foreign Mexicans and Orientals, who are
taking over and corrupting the American Way of Life.  Obviously, I'm being
sarcastic here, but the media very much presents the view that American==white,
and that anyone Asian-looking or Hispanic-looking (whatever those terms
mean) must be a recently immigrated foreigner, whereas in reality, a
lot of Latin and Asian Americans have been here a lot longer than a lot
of European Americans.

All along the West Coast, there have long been large Asian-American
populations, and throughout the Southwest, the Mestizo culture was
dominant long before heavy European-American immigration arrived from
the East.  Every time you see a movie set in the Old West where everyone
is white (or, equally ludicrous, where everyone is white until the outlaws
ride "across the border" into Mexico, where they suddenly arrive at some
sleepy Mexican town populated by sleepy Mexicans), you are seeing a lie.

						--Alan J. Hu
From: achin@math.tamu.edu (Andrew Chin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Oriental bias against Indians ? How true ?
Date: 8 Apr 92 17:37:02 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dept of Mathematics, Texas A&M University

In article <69988@ut-emx.uucp>, vishram@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Vishram P.Dalvi) writes:
 
|> 	I knew a pretty Asian-American (Oriental) girl who lived in
|> my apartment complex and had developed a liking for her. So after I 
|> thought I knew her fairly well, I was contemplating asking her out 
|> on a date. Since I had never dated any American women before, I decided 
|> to consult one of my Asian-American friends about it since I thought
|> that coming from a similar cultural/family background he would have 
|> some idea about the psyche of Asian-American women.
|> 
|> 	This friend just asked me to FORGET THE GIRL. He told me that
|> no Oriental girl will go for an Indian.

Good deal!  Now if only we can get the CM's to consult us first, too....
-- 
Andrew Chin    Dept. of Math.    Texas A&M U.    College Station, TX 77843
achin@math.tamu.edu   Probably not TAMU's exact opinions.   (409) 845-1924
                * Fighting racism is not a special interest *
From: achin@math.tamu.edu (Andrew Chin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Oriental bias against Indians ? How true ?
Date: 17 Apr 92 02:54:53 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Dept of Mathematics, Texas A&M University

In article <MDAY.92Apr16110039@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu>, mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day) writes: 
|>    > jpak@oakhill.sps.mot.com (James Pak) writes:
|> 
|>    Oh, and while I'm on this topic, I'm not that big on this notion of
|>    "you're only beautiful if you think so."  My very personal opinion on
|>    this whole self- esteem issue in this country is that it's quite
|>    overblown in importance.  
|> 
|> Yes, this is mostly true.  Another part of what's going on is that
|> people focus on a symptom (self-esteem) rather than the problem,
|> simply because the problem is sometimes too hard to deal with.  I've
|> been at school assemblies in inner-city schools where the kids sing
|> songs about "I am special, I am important" etc. ad nauseam.  The kids
|> have rotten lives (fathers beating them and mother, friends and
|> relatives killed in gang fights or by random gunfire) and tend to
|> think that they must have done something to deserve it.  What you'd
|> like to do is fix whatever's broken about their family or
|> neighborhood, but you can't.  So you push self-esteem instead.  It's
|> all sort of like taking aspirin for a gunshot wound to the chest.

And on the flip side you do have Stuart Smalleys out there making
a lot of money selling their books, tapes, and seminars at the Hilton
to upper-middle-class fortysomethings with unfulfilled, unproductive 
lives.  Lots of people keep going back to ever-more-expensive programs
with huge profit margins ("love offerings":  if it's not expensive, it 
doesn't require a "personal commitment"!) just to get the high of 
facilitated acceptance.  

Insight and Wellsprings are aspirin for America's cancer:  we're 
going down the drain, but the important thing is that we feel good
about ourselves.  (Sarcastic smiley for the benefit of Harry Xu:  :-/)
-- 
Andrew Chin    Dept. of Math.    Texas A&M U.    College Station, TX 77843
achin@math.tamu.edu   Probably not TAMU's exact opinions.   (409) 845-1924
                * Fighting racism is not a special interest *
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: kerryg@stat.rice.edu (Kerry Go)
Subject: Re: Asian Immigrants on SAT English
Organization: Dept. of Statistics, Rice University
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 22:44:08 GMT

In article <ISBELL.92Apr7173622@pop-tarts.ai.mit.edu> isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
>Think about that for a minute.  Most of the SAT-type vocabulary is
>simply redundant polysyballic words that mean "bad," "good," "quiet"
>and all the rest.  So your semantic richness argument rings hollow to
>me.
>
>Further, the many definitions of "good" in slang tend to form a vague
>ordering (and in fact tend to depend on emphasis a great deal) over
>time and convey more information than "good."

The only thing I see in this argument is your trying to show the superiority
of "black English" to "standard English."  Your first paragraph is a bit
slanted, perhaps.

I would think many words are synomyms to most people simply because they do
not care about slight differences in meaning.  Those who care about
the differences in meaning learn them.  I don't see why this would vary
among ethnic groups or different languages.

Let's take an obvious example.  Someone spots a car out the window, and
he might say, "It's a Lincoln Continental," or, "It's a Ford Mustang,"
whereas I would say, "It's a car."  If I feel particularly perceptive, I
might say, "It's a *blue* car."  I couldn't tell you the difference between
a Continental and a Mustang, nor do I really care to.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: oshiro@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Woodrow S Oshiro)
Subject: Re: Why is stereotyping bad? (Re: 'Asian Nerd' Stereotype)
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 22:47:10 GMT

In article <22532@alice.att.com> jj@alice.UUCP (jj) writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.234057.7103@oakhill.sps.mot.com> jpak@oakhill.sps.mot.com (James Pak) writes:
>
>>However, I do think that there aren't too many stereotypes against white people
>>in this country AS A RACE, i.e. stereotypes specifically about them because of
>>their *race*.
>
>How about:
>
>All whites are prejudiced against *.
>
>All white men beat their wives.
>
>All white males repress females.
>
>All white males are power-mad.
>
>For a few.
>
>In case you're not sure that these exist, I've observed
>these particular stereotypes in action in the last week.

The stereotypes which you mentioned may exist, but they are not as pervasive
as the stereotypes of other people.  Take a look at the mainstream media,
the great perpetuator of stereotypes in our society.  In the movies, tv,
etc., there are no strong trends toward portraying all whites as [whatever]. 
This cannot be said about other groups, like Asians.

You must believe this yourself in order to say, "In case you're not sure that
these exist".

>I've also observed lots of asian stereotypes, black stereotypes,
>female stereotypes, and so on.
>
>They're just more stereotypes.

Stereotypes which are more pervasive in our society.

>
>All stereotypes are dehumanizing, because they remove some essential
>part of being human, i.e. the ability to self-determine one's actions.
>
>Down with stereotypes.

Damn right.

						Woody Oshiro
 						oshiro@en.ecn.purdue.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: jpak@oakhill.sps.mot.com (James Pak)
Subject: Re: Chinatown unsafe?
Reply-To: jpak@manute.sps.mot.com
Organization: Motorola Inc.  Austin, Tx.
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 21:14:50 GMT

In article <kubke0INNjv2@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> melindac@thedarktower.Corp.Sun.COM (I Shop therefore I AM!!) writes:
>James, make sure you have a big appetite when you go to Chinatown.

Oh, I will, you can bet on that.  That's the primary reason I went there when
I was in college--to eat.

>Oh, and be very careful when walking around, the sidewalks can get slippery
>especially after Dwight's been spittin' all over it.

Hmm, good advice.  Oh, and BTW, Dwight doesn't know it yet, but one of my
pet projects while visiting the BA this summer will be to hunt down "underdog"
on the Stanford campus, tie him to a chair, and then read him a 1000-page
anthology on the wonders of Chinese culture.  Slowly.  Very, verrrrry slowly.

Jim

p.s. 64 more days, Dwight...
-- 
(Do not listen to the address on the header.  My correct email address is: )
jpak@manute.sps.mot.com  or  ...!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!manute!jpak
From: chrchan@ocf.berkeley.edu (Christopher S. Chan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Chinatown unsafe? (was Re: Will America fall?)
Date: 10 Apr 1992 11:56:09 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: lightning.berkeley.edu
Keywords: unsafe, very unsafe


For the record, one example of a Chinese community without
lots of crime and is pretty clean is Monterey Park in southern 
California.  Here, you'll see real Chinese culture, not the 
fake stuff that you see in the touristy Chinatowns of LA and SF.

Chris Chan
chrchan@ocf.berkeley.edu

P.S.  Hmmmm...  I'm thinking of buying a car.  Maybe a Toyota.
I'll probably go down to San Jose, too.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: gewong@mtholyoke.edu (= G e r m a i n =)
Subject: Just a test.
Organization: Mount Holyoke College
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 04:42:10 GMT



Sorry.  Ignore this.
From: melindac@thedarktower.Corp.Sun.COM (I Shop because It's There)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Oriental bias against Indians ? How true ?
Date: 14 Apr 92 17:38:32 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: thedarktower.corp.sun.com



	clare@nynexst.com (Clare Chu Ayala) :
	>  This is the only newsgroup where people have flamed me.  
	>  I don't know why I bother, but I guess I do want to keep up 
	>  with what other Asian Americans are up to.  :-(

I've run across this attitude in numerous newsgroups. Why do people
get so upset over flames across the net? It's not like they don't ever get
criticized when they have face-to-face conversations with other people so
why be put off with flames from people you've never actually met? People
should be more thick-skinned.

Clare, I'm glad you're going to stick with this newsgroup. It'd be
unfortunate to lose a female voice since there are already so few
in this newsgroup. 

	Melinda
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: cshi@cs.ulowell.edu (Chunde Shi)
Subject: Re: Will America fall?   teeter, teeter
Keywords: Chinese history
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Lowell Computer Science
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 02:11:17 GMT

In article <22691@dog.ee.lbl.gov> yjhbhc@dante.lbl.gov (Joe Huang) writes:
>Harry Xu writes:
>
>>> 1. Chinese civilization is one of the oldest in the world.
>>> 2. The Yuan Dynasty was the largest empire ever existed, being about twice
>>> 	the size of the Islamic Empire and the Roman Empire (which is not 
>>> 	Roman, not holly, nor empire).
>
>I'm always surprised that Chinese would take credit for the Yuan
>Dynasty, a regime founded by the Mongols at the cost of an estimated
>35 million dead in China. In talking to friends from Korea, Russia,
War was/is always bloody, anywhere, any time.
>and Iran, I find that they regard the Mongol period as one of 
>destruction and horror. However, many Chinese seem to not only 
>downplay the fifty years of bloodshed (1220 to 1270), but regard
              ********* then hundreds year peace and prosperity better than 
crawling in caves and jumping between trees.
>Mongol conquests as their own. 
 ****************
 Mongol rebelling, not conquest.
>
>On another note, the anecdote of being neither holy, Roman, nor
>empire referred to the _Holy Roman Empire_ (9th to 16th centuries),
>_not_ to the Roman Empire, which was Roman and the biggest empire
>ever seen in Europe.
>
>Joe Huang
From: mjln_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Mikeey J. Lin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Chinatown unsafe?
Keywords: fairy tales
Date: 14 Apr 92 01:56:38 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York


	Hmmm... all this talk about Chinatown being unsafe has gotten me
thinking. I used to hang out with some Chinese gangsters in NYC and we
never really had any real trouble. Are you folks talking only about incidents
that happens out in California? I admit sometimes it's not safe, but then 
again, many places are unsafe. By the way, there were "incidence" in the
Chinatown at NYC, but the rival gangs usually stayed out of each other's 
territory. I dunno, enlighten me. :->

						Mikeey
				    mjln_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
From: hyx1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Harry Y Xu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: One more time on this (AA spokesperson)
Date: 13 Apr 92 02:14:58 GMT
Organization: Columbia University


achin@math.tamu.edu (Andrew Chin) writes:
>Linking together this topic with "AA ministers and churches," how
>effective do you think an "AA Jesse Jackson" would be?  I don't
>think AA ministers have shown the leadership skills that could
>unite and mobilize AA communities the way many African-American
>preachers have, especially here in the South.  Despite the
>rapid growth of AA churches, they're still not influential
>among AA's, mainstream churches or mainstream communities.

	Just wondering:  How many (AA) ministers have u met personally?
   In New York City:
	The way the African-American preachers mobilize their communities
	is to publicly speak out against the non-black in any incident
	involving black.  They generally gain leadership among blacks
	by charging everybody (who gets any disput with black) as being
	racist.  Example: Rev. Al Sharpton (sp?)
   In the South:
	The general attitude of the mainstream communities toward black 
	is racist.  Look at Louisiana, Taxes, Alabama, Arkansas, etc.
	Look at David Duke.  Many say that they didn't vote for him was
	becauce is bad for the economy to have him as governor.  Look at
	the Martin Luther King's day incident.  Look at the gettos and the
	all (or nearly all) white neighborhoods.
	How can anybody expect the AA minister to be "influential among
	the mainstream communities in the South?

> no one in this group so far has
>ever seen an AA pastor of a mainstream congregation.

	What?  Really?
	I've met a few AA pastors even tho I'm not religious and only
	attended religious servious once.  The pastor I met there was
	from SF, he said he was invited to testify in the state senate
	against legal recognition of homosexual marriage. (Summer, 1991)
	Btw, he's something like "christian (?) testimony" (more emphasis 
	on the Holly Spirit.)

====================================>.sig <====================================
  Harry Xu  (KB2LHA)	   Internet:  hyx1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
 *Columbia University Amateur Radio Club (CUARC-<>-W2AEE)  *Founded, 1913*
 *The American Radio Relay League:  Amateur Radio >>---> A National Resource
 *New York Road Runners Club  -&-  Columbia University Road Runners Club 
  ::::::"Go run.  Nothing else can make you feel as good as making love."  --ME
====================================> end <====================================
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day)
Subject: Re: Why is stereotyping bad? (Re: 'Asian Nerd' Stereotype)
Organization: /u/mday/.organization
	<23577@scorn.sco.COM> <1992Apr8.150211.1150@island.COM>
	<1992Apr8.234057.7103@oakhill.sps.mot.com>
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 04:10:19 GMT

   jpak@oakhill.sps.mot.com (James Pak) writes:

   That's why there aren't many WASP stereotype offensive jokes (are
   there any?).

Lots.  I even remember seeing an "Official WASP Joke Book" years ago.
The stereotypical WASP is asexual, unimaginative, unromantic, goes to
church but is basically immune to religion, and maintains a stiff
upper lip even in absurd situations.  Lots of Monty Python humor is
making fun of these traits.  Note that this is the WASP as in
ruling-class, George-Bush-style WASP.  Most white people in America
aren't WASPs.  Bill Griffith's observations of "dirtball culture" in
Zippy are probably closer to making fun of mainstream white culture.

   However, I do think that there aren't too many stereotypes against
   white people in this country AS A RACE, i.e. stereotypes specifically
   about them because of their *race*.  I'm not talking specific ethnic
   backgrounds like Polish, Jewish, etc., I'm talking *race*, the way we
   have stereotypes against black people or Asian people.  White people
   in this country can't be pigeonholed specifically because of race.

You should take a look at "The History of White People in America", by
Martin Mull (and someone else? can't remember).  It is admittedly
good-humored as opposed to viscious, but is certainly based on
stereotyping whites.

--Mark Day

mday@lcs.mit.edu
From: timlee@public.btr.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: AA ministers and churches
Date: 11 Apr 92 22:16:16 GMT
Reply-To: timlee@btr.com (Timothy J. Lee)
Followup-To: soc.culture.asian.american

achin@math.tamu.edu (Andrew Chin) writes:
|
|1.  Have you ever attended a church service led by an AA minister?

Yes.  Someone's marriage.
 
|4.  Are services conducted in both English and an Asian language?

Yes.  For the benefit of most of one person's relatives who knew the
Asian language better, and the benefit of the other person's relatives
who know English better (and probably didn't know the Asian language
at all).
From: hyx1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Harry Y Xu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Reclaiming our heritage (was: Oriental bias against Indians...)
Date: 12 Apr 92 17:41:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: cunixf.1992Apr12.174139.7084
Organization: Columbia University


  mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu writes:
>   hyx1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu writes:
>
>	   Nth-generation Asian Americans?  N must be = to 1 or 2.
>
>This is an odd claim.  The AA population is heavily skewed toward
>recent immigrants because earlier immigration laws tended to be
>heavily biased against Asian immigration; but that doesn't mean that
>there are *no* AAs descended from immigrants several generations back.
>mday@lcs.mit.edu

	I'm ignorant on this.  I just think that N>2 Asian population is
	small enough to be considered negligible in this discusion.  We 
	are talking about a general trend here; not isolated cases.
	Does anyone no the ratio of N>2 vs N=<2 ?    Hope u no what I mean.
	Early immigration laws are *racist*.	

====================================>.sig <====================================
  Harry Xu  (KB2LHA)	   Internet:  hyx1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
 *Columbia University Amateur Radio Club (CUARC-<>-W2AEE)  *Founded, 1913*
 *The American Radio Relay League:  Amateur Radio >>---> A National Resource
 *New York Road Runners Club  -&-  Columbia University Road Runners Club 
	"Go run.  Nothing else can make you feel as good as making love."  --ME
====================================> end <====================================
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american,soc.culture.african.american
From: sguillo@intelhf.hf.intel.com (Stanford Guillory)
Subject: Re: Asian Immigrants on SAT English
Organization: Development Tools Operation, Intel Corp., Hillsboro  OR
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 92 16:08:20 GMT

<U49146@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:

>In article <56838@cup.portal.com>, Arthur_T_Hu@cup.portal.com says:
>>
>>So ... Asian immigrants suffer even though they're smart because they
>>don't have english skills.
>>

Well gee, isn't that nice to know. Asian immigrants are smart. There
is not a spectrum of intellectual ability among them like other 
ethnic groups. Nope. They're just "smart". I guess Hu is not
an immigrant.

Stanford S. Guillory
sguillor@pcocd2.intel.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american