Zentella made a similar point in the essay "Multiple Codes, Multiple Identities: Puerto Rican Children in New York City." On page 109, Zentella said, "Language is singled out in many studies of Puerto Ricans to explain their high rates of economic and educational failure." Sometimes in the United States, this can also be said of other races. In the US, the races can only be seen as White or Black. While many people in the US come from diverse backgrounds and have both white and black members in their families, many mixed racial backgrounds are accepted by neither the White group nor the Black group. In the Family Guy clip, the Asian woman is not accepted by the other drivers on the road and is stigmatized by the creators of the show.
Additionally the clip demonstrates another important point that the essay attempts to convey. On page 98 of the essay Zentella said, "No language is pure, everyone speaks a dialect."
In essence, the essay wants to make the point that people of non-White and non-Black origin have trouble establishing a place for themselves in the United States. Video clips like the one from Family Guy do nothing to stop perpetuating negative stigmatism's about the switching of languages and the power of dialects.
I agree with the comment about how it is harder to establish a place in the United States for non-white origin. In the article, Zentella provides a scenario when a student spoke Spanglish and the teacher believed the student to be dumb because of it. Today people who can speak two languages are better off in the long run because it is easier to find jobs. People who can speak two or more languages are very smart.
ReplyDeleteI thought this Family Guy clip was a perfect example to use for this topic. Even though Family Guy is just trying to be humorous, the sad reality of it is that this stereotype is real and very prominent in the United States today. Just in Bloomington alone we have a lot of different nationalities attending school here and I hear people all the time criticizing the way Asians drive. Also, everytime a nice, expensive car drives by, people automatically assume it's by driven by an Asian. Mary Kate is right when she says Asians can't all be put under the same umbrella. There are many different types of Asian countries, languages, and dialects, but we as Americans, tend to use the same stereotype for them all which is obviously not politically correct. There are plenty of Asians out there who know how to drive and don't necessarily have an expenisve car, but unfortunately due to our society's view on minorities, Asians continue to be stigmatized and stereotyped like they are in the clip from Family Guy. These sorts of clips may be funny, but they certaintly don't help erase the negative ethnicity stereotypes kids are able to pick up from watching the show.
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