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White guy speaking pidgin english1/4/2023 ![]() So, in the rare occasion that she speaks, the white man does not, and need not, understand. This Oriental woman is without a voice to express her own desires, as her speech is a “nonlanguage-that is, uninterpretable chattering, pidgin English, giggling, or silence” (309). It seems likely, then, that she internalized these media images, which often perpetuate passive stereotypes of Asian women by representing us as some variation of the “Lotus Blossom Baby” trope: the Oriental figure who is hyper-feminine, delicate, and submissive to men (Tajima 309). Having grown up in an all-white community, my friend had only seen Asians as minor characters in television and film before meeting me. My friend’s assumptions seem to have stemmed from the popular stereotype that Asian women are passive love interests of white heterosexual men (Lee 117). My white friend, perhaps unconsciously, made two assumptions about me: first, that I am heterosexual, and second, that I belong with a white man. While my fourteen-year-old self was vaguely offended but unable to pinpoint the offense, I can now define what hurt me then and continues to affect me as an Asian woman in the U.S. Her question, however, haunts me to this day. I muttered something about being uninterested in marriage, and the moment passed. That was when she dropped the bomb: “But Sally, wouldn’t you want to marry a white guy?” But at the age of fourteen, I was unsure of myself and unable to fully grasp the various identities that crisscrossed my being. What I really meant was that I wasn’t into men. When she told me that a white boy from our English class seemed interested in me, I replied that I wasn’t into dating white men. ![]() Correction: she talked about boys, and I listened. ![]() It was a Saturday afternoon, and my friend and I were passing a bag of chips back and forth, talking about boys. “But Sally, wouldn’t you want to marry a white guy?” ![]()
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