From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: On Languages and Asian Americans
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 00:06:16 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.193436.11900@mcshub.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
yu@physun.physics.mcmaster.ca (Frank F. Yu) writes:
>In article <1992Dec24.023937.18253@leland.Stanford.EDU>
>>underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
>>However, there are many bozos (and they know who they are) who claim that
>>Ms. Covington is committing a grave sin for not teaching her children
>>the language "of her ethnicity" (quotes intended).  For example, suppose that
>>Ms. Covington were ethnically German-ge.  Then, the bozos claim that the
>>heritage of Ms. Covington's children is German-cu and that the language
>>which she should teach her children is German-cu, in addition to the English
>>that is taught in the public schools.
>>This view is extremely bigotted and racist.

By the way, Mr. Yu's views are typical of Chinese-cu people.

Note that in my entire response to Ms. Covington, I never once mentioned
the word "Chinese".  The reason that Mr. Yu thinks that I'm talking
about Chinese-cu is that he knows (as we all do) that Chinese-cu people
are guilty of precisely what I noted in the above paragraph.

That _is_ pretty damning, isn't it?

>The reason why Ms. Covington does not have to teach her kids German while
>the Chinese have to teach their kids the Chinese language is obvious and

It is not obvious to anyone but a Chinese-cu.

>Why don't we take a more practical viewpoint. No matter your ancestors are
>German, Irish, or Dutch, you are white, and you mingle well, physically or
>culturally. How important is it for a white person to know the origin of
>another white person and does it greatly enhance the chance of a meaningful
>conversation or even a lasting friendship? I suppose you don't have to know
>German to talk to one of 53% of your compatriots who have German origin?

53%?  Mr. Yu must mean the statistics which indicate that 53% of Americans
have German-ge ancestry of some sort.

What makes this paragraph incredibly asinine is Mr. Yu's query of "I suppose
you don't have to know German to talk to one of 53% of your compatriots who
have German origin?"  Sure, the German(-ge)-Americans don't need to
learn the German-cu language to speak to 53% of other Americans.
Of course not.  They all speak English.

But how the hell does that support why Chinese-ge need to learn the
Chinese-cu language?

Note.  "The Chinese(-ge)-Americans don't need to learn the Chinese-cu
language to speak to 53% of other Americans", either.   Why?  Because 
those 53% of Americans speak English, not Chinese-cu.

>Then we look at the Chinese people in America. Teaching the next generation
>Chinese(Mandarin or Cantonese) has a justifiable high priority. Just think
>about if these kids want to talk to their grandma, or a lot of sales people
>in China town.

This is typical Chinese-cu thinking, which I adequately highlight in the
paragraph below.

"Then we look at the Chinese-ge people in America.  Teaching the next
generation Korean-cu has a justifiable high priority.  Just think about if
these kids want to talk to other Korean-cus, or a lot of sales people in
Korea town."

Chinese-cu, like Mr. Yu, claim that there is some kind of inherent loss that
cannot be made up by learning another foreign language other than Chinese-cu.
They over look the gains another foreign language has to offer.

(Why the hell do Chinese-(ge-)Americans have to shop in China town?
 They can shop in Korean town if they learn the Korean-cu foreign language.
 Even if they don't learn any foreign language, then they can shop there.)

<Above comments deal with stuff that Mr. Yu conjures up himself,
 having nothing to do with what Ms. Covington and I pointed out.
 I answered it just for fun.  Stuff below is what our main point was.>

Given that ignorant thinking, Mr. Yu has completely overlooked what Ms.
Covington and I both point out.  Namely, it is perfectly acceptable
for a Thai-(ge-)American mother to encourge exactly 1 of the following options:

(1) learning English and Korean-cu
(2) learning English and Swahili-cu
(3) learning English and Japanese-cu
(4) learning English and Chinese-cu (ugh!)
(5) learning English and Thai-cu

No one is saying that there is anything wrong with encouraging the learning
of a foreign language that "matches" (quotes intended) the ethnic group.
What we are saying is that there is _nothing_ wrong with encouraging the
learning of a foreign language that "_does_ _not_" match the ethnic group
of the mother or the rest of the family even if such an action means
that the "matching" foreign language is never learned.

There is _nothing_ with this.  Only bozos think that there is something
wrong with this.

I see everything wrong with a jerk who condemns a Thai-ge mother because
(1) she does not encourage her kids to learn Thai-cu but
(2) instead encourages her kids to learn Korean-cu as the foreign language.
And we _know_ who those bozos are.

<End of main point.  The rest of the replies is just for fun.>

>The reason why Chinese people have not become members of this society in
>a sense is the long existing racial discrimination in this country. So please

How bizarre.  Only a Chinese-cu would say this.

There are thousands of Oriental-Americans who do not know (i.e. cannot speak)
the foreign language that "matches" their ethnic background.  Why hasn't
racial discrimination forced them to learn their "matching" foreign language?

Why is it, according Mr. Fu (the Chinese-cu), that this so-called
racial discrimination seems to justify only the Chinese-ge learning
their "matching" foreign language?  Why?

I know.   I know.  Chinese-cu Chinese-ge jerks think that knowing the
Chinese-cu language is driven by something in the genes.  Curious.  That
sounds just like what Nazis and Klansmen and rednecks say.

>don't blame Chinese for being different and not fitting in.
>
>I don't really belong here because I am not an American. But when there is
>no soc.culture.chinese.canadian, I find this group to be quite interesting.
>[chronilogically out of order]
>one does not have to resort to silly words such as "bozo", "cu" or "ge"
>to demonstrate their point.
>Frank

On the contrary, I have just demonstrated (yet again) that another 
Chinese-cu Chinese-ge believes that the state of being Chinese-ge
compels one to be Chinese-cu.  This is a view shared by rednecks,
Klansmen, and Nazis.

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