The ESL Controversy

I know, two politics-related posts in a row.  But this is important and something I can speak to from personal experience. I’m also a bit excited I get to vote for the first time since I became a U.S. citizen just a few months ago.

There’s an initiative on the Oregon ballot this year (Measure 58 ) that would limit English as a Second Language to 1 to 2 years per student (depending on grade level).

First of all, there seems to be some misconception that ESL/Bilingual education means that students don’t speak or learn English. They do. In fact, I’d argue that that’s generally the point.

Now, at the risk of sounding self-important: I’m pretty smart. I speak and write in English better than a lot of people who only speak English do. I ended up going to a prestigious university and graduating with honors and a double major. In addition, I came to the U.S. at a very young age, and I grew up with stable parents, maybe not affluent but definitely not poor. And in my early elementary school years, my mom walked me to school while drilling me on spelling and sometimes even stayed to volunteer in my classroom.

…And I spent over three years in ESL. In those late ’80s – early ’90s at my California elementary school, they held me back in the program until I finally passed the proficiency test in third grade. I’d failed it in first and second grade.

Under Measure 58, I would have been kicked out of ESL after Kindergarten.

It takes a long time to learn a language. Moreover, it’s stressful to be in a new country, and ESL provides a safety net. Even younger kids, who learn relatively fast, benefit from spending time with other immigrant kids that they can learn English with. For older kids, high schoolers — I find it hard to even imagine how difficult it must be to adjust. And say you come to this country as a freshman in high school, and you spend your 2 years in ESL. Then under Measure 58, you’d get thrown into, what, physics and English lit with everyone else? Does that make sense to anyone?

And while I grew up in fortunate circumstances, many immigrant students didn’t. In the school systems, there are Southeast Asian refugees and illegal Mexicans, for instance. Students who are disadvantage socioeconomically tend to not perform well in schools. Add language and cultural barriers and it makes things even worse. Of course they’re not doomed and they can succeed…but a supportive environment that is attentive to their specific needs can go a long way.

No on Measure 58! (or any other similar law your state might put on the ballot!)

The Asian-American vote

It’s elections season!  This is going to be the rare post about politics, since I don’t want this to be that kind of blog.

Good ol’ Slate recently had an article about why we never hear about the Asian-American vote. Nothing I haven’t already considered before, but it does bring up some interesting points.

Aside from the obvious (few in total numbers, and even fewer eligible to vote), there’s the issue of heterogeneity. Unlike Latinos, we don’t even have a unified language, and Asians here tend to not go far back enough living in this country to have developed any party loyalties.

But…personally, I don’t see why this is all such a bad thing. I don’t feel the need for Asian-Americans to be “recognized” by the pollsters and campaigners and fellow citizens when it comes to elections. I do believe that the concept of “Asian-American” can be useful (that’s a whole future post, I think), but I don’t need to be lumped together into a bloc of voters.

I registered to vote as an Independent because I think the whole idea of a party system is destructive. It undermines individual thought (ironic in the USA, isn’t it?) by putting people in categories, so all people in said category can vote in the same predictable way.

So similarly, I don’t think there needs to be an “Asian-American vote.” Of course I think every Asian-American U.S. citizen should vote, but they can make their own decisions on how. I find this whole 80-20 Initiative — trying to get 80% of Asians to vote for one side or another — is bordering on offensive. If 80% of Asians really do feel one way or the other, fine, we should all vote that way. But artificially constructing a voting bloc just for the sake of creating a voting bloc? That’s completely ridiculous.

More Asian-Americans in politics would be nice, but I want that to be because they’re qualified people that their constituents voted for, not because a bunch of Asian-Americans wanted an Asian-American politician in office. (Sort of like the whole Hilary Clinton and feminists thing…) I’d like to point out that here in whitey-white Portland, Oregon, we have David Wu, the first Chinese-American member of the U.S. House of Representatives, now seeking his sixth term.

When I vote in November, it’ll be as my own, intelligent, whole self — which obviously includes being Asian-American but it’s far from the whole story.

Racism (or not?) in The Manchurian Candidate

I recently re-visited the 1962 version of the film The Manchurian Candidate, which I hadn’t seen in a while.

Just to be clear, it’s a great film — eerie and suspenseful, well-written, and has some wonderful performances. The disturbing “dream” sequence described nicely here (scroll down a bit) is quite possibly the greatest example of inspired film editing ever.

That said, AsianWeek agreed with me in that the film’s big flaw is the use of “yellow face” in Chunjin, a Korean character played by an actor who doesn’t even look remotely Asian. I was actually confused when he first appeared on the screen, as it took me a moment to realize that he’s supposed to be Korean. And…he does martial arts! Of course!

I don’t find much to object to in the politics of the film, however. I could see what people are getting at — the title of the film admittedly has “Yellow Peril” written on it — but I see the film as an accurate representation of the fear and paranoia surrounding the Cold War. There’s an interesting discussion in a college course message board regarding the film and (presumably) the book What Have They Built You to Do?: The Manchurian Candidate and Cold War America. I haven’t read the book (I’m not sure about a 288 page analysis on one movie), but if anything, I think The Manchurian Candidate is even a bit subversive how it turns out that the real sneaky villain that’s infiltrated American politics is a white woman, in a “you-didn’t-see-that-coming-didja?” plot twist. (Hopefully nobody’s mad at me for spoilers on a popular 40+ year old movie.)

So I cringe through the scenes with Chunjin and enjoy the film.