Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Is this thread serious? Do you not know what a regional accent is? Or did you just not know non-whites can also have accents? So weird...
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Americans of Chinese heritage with southern accents living in the Mississippi Delta
- Thread starter Orkidea
- Start date
Gordon Shumway
Banned
I ror'd..
capitalCORN
Member
Riiiiight, play us up like a gimmick.
NeoZeedeater
Member
And conversely, plenty of people outside of the southern states have what most people think of as southern accents. Just visit a small town in the US Pacific Northwest.Cocaloch said:
Makes sense. The elder members of the family went to grade school in the delta region so of course they'd pick up the accent and dialect of their immediate peers. It's not unusual. I've met Asians with Boston accents, Brooklyn, Australian, valley Californian, etc etc. All sorts. Regional accents, how do they work?
Not necessarily. For instance, my sister has a thick Russian accent despite having lived on the Gulf Coast since she was 4.
Clearly regional accents do not always override other sorts of accents and linguistic pressures.
Like come on guys, we have an amazing example of this in that same region. The stereotypical White Southern English and Black Southern English are quite distinct accents that are coterminous.
pokeystaples
Banned
Some of y'all should come to Houston. Southern accents on all makes and models of human.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
Oh, know. Not speaking in absolutes or anything. Just saying this isn't something that's amazing by any stretch lol..
Amazed is a bit strong, but I think it's at least somewhat interesting that such a community exists.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
No shit? That doesn't make it surprising that they can have southern accents after living for generations in the South........
A Chinese man in a cyber cafe in Mexico started speaking to me in perfect Spanish. The hilarious thing to me is that I've been so Americanized that my first instinct was to say "What?" and he replied "Que?"
Was not expecting that interaction so far down South in Guadalajara. I mean historically, East Asian folks in this part of Mexico is nothing new, but that was generations ago.
Was not expecting that interaction so far down South in Guadalajara. I mean historically, East Asian folks in this part of Mexico is nothing new, but that was generations ago.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Why wouldn't it? Unless no Chinese live there, why wouldn't "such a community" exist?
That means it's not exactly a given? I was raised in roughly that area and I don't have anything similar to the accent, which I know because people feel the need to tell me about it multiple times a day pretty much every day.
newdayrocks
Member
My wife, son, and I moved from the Pacific Northwest to Kentucky for two years, and we all started picking up certain regional dialect/accent stuff pretty quickly. It was frightening.
nothing is a given, but the implications of this thread:
"why don't they sound like I expect, mind blown?!"
is the probem
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
:lol
Moreover in about the same area another group of immigrants, Cajuns, never actually picked up the southern accent despite having been there for longer. The accent also has the dubious honor of being the only accent I'd outright accept to be worse than the "standard" Southern one.
I see how it can come from some problematic places, mostly the othering of minorities, but on the whole it's probably coming more from just expectations about accents and language. Peoples' problem with it seem to be mostly coming from an overly rigid view of language.
A Pretty Panda
fuckin' called it, man
Gordon Shumway
Banned
All my military buddies switch from regular speak to like a country twang on occasion. Got a Cuban buddy (Marine) who never went back to his accent once he "retired"..we always bug out when he comes around..so damn thick!
ChubbyHuggs
Member
I think for some people it's because the lack of representation in media and a lot less travel.
Twilight Princess
Member
Why wouldnt white ppl sell to black ppl? Do they hate money?
I think that people are being quick to attach racist undertones to various posts, when in reality most people just haven't met any Chinese Americans with American roots that deep.
I lived in Markham, Ontario for several years. Markham is over 50% Chinese, and about 75% non-white. I don't recall ever meeting someone over 60 with a Canadian accent, despite having interacted with thousands of people there. No doubt they exist, but the ramp up of Asian immigration to North America is so recent, that they are swamped by first generation arrivals of the past 40 years. Perhaps western Canada would be a different story. I know that Japanese Canadians have a long history in Canada, with immigration starting earlier than some other ethnicities, but they are dwarfed in number by Chinese Canadians (who largely came here since 1970).
The US went from 0.2% Asian and Pacific Islander in 1950 to 6-7% currently. And that includes Hawaii. That's a huge shift.
Hearing about historical communities like this one is pretty cool.
Seductivpancakes
Member
Yep. It's amazingly shitty.
Nah, people have problems perceiving Asian-Americans as the perpetual "other" or foreigner.
Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
That fried rice looked glorious.
I've literally never seen an older Asian (>40 years old) with a southern accent. I'm not even sure if I've seen one with a non-Asian English accent period. It's not that we didn't think it was possible. It's just unusual to see.
I'd find it just as unusual/interesting to see a white person who has grown up in China and speaks English with an Asian accent.
To make this clear I think there is a huge difference between telling someone their English is good, based solely on their race, and thinking it it noteworthy that people have a particular regional accent from a region associated with a pretty specific and, until recently, very insular group of people.
The former is a problem because that's making a comment about race and nationality as a whole, as well as what we understand to be a kind of high cultural language acquisition, "speaking correct English". The second is a comment more oriented around what people think about the accent itself.
For instance if people were more aware about the community in question even existing, they probably wouldn't have been as surprised by the accent.
The former is a problem because that's making a comment about race and nationality as a whole, as well as what we understand to be a kind of high cultural language acquisition, "speaking correct English". The second is a comment more oriented around what people think about the accent itself.
For instance if people were more aware about the community in question even existing, they probably wouldn't have been as surprised by the accent.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
fo sho.
CaptainSlow
Member
But do they have stolen vases?
But seriously, I never really thought about it before, but I did know someone at college who was from a Chinese family but lived in southern Alabama and had the thickest southern accent I've ever heard, even wore plaid shirts, jeans, and a cowboy hat.
And this thread is a great example why.
Miggytronz
Member
I was born to two Puerto Rican parents in Puerto Rico. Raised in Virginia Beach, VA and I have no Spanish accent at all. My accent is a result of the this melting pot I live in. Throws people off all the time when I speak.
Alligatorjandro
Banned
Sometimes people have accents.
Rice-Eater
Member
"You're English is so good"
I haven't been asked that question in a long time. Not since my early 20's and I'm in my mid 30's now. And yes that's a good thing. But I actually kind of miss it because as I got older I started giving more creative and exaggerated answers just to see if the person asking me would actually believe me. And they did every time. It was fun to poke fun at people and then tell them in the end "j/k, I was born and raised in the US".
I grew up with the kids of the Vietnamese refugees that fled Vietnam after the war, many of which settled in Texas. Their kids sounded just like we did be the time we were in high school. Tranh Nguyen had a stronger Texas drawl than I did, because I'd spent years growing up in Louisiana and Tennessee, which had reduced my original accent to a slightly southern-inflected midwest accent.
PlayALLtheGames
Banned
Eye for an Eye
Member
Early on in the Mountain Men series, the guy in Maine had a friend come over to help build a cellar. He spoke an entirely distinct dialect that wasn't quite English either. I find it fascinating how we still have regional languages all over the place.
In my experience Vietnamese Americans in the Gulf coast tend to have what most people would say is a fairly standard American accent with some distinctively southern elements that are mostly noticeable only to people looking for them, the pen-pin merger in particular. Which is pretty much what you're saying at the end about your own accent. My understanding is such a development is more or less the most likely outcome from a historical linguistic perspective. (I am not a historical linguist)
Also in my experience really thick southern accents either tend to come from people playing them up for laughs, or particularly isolated places. I've never studied it though, and I'm mostly only interested in the linguistic situation in the South for the creation of black American English in the 18th century.
SatoAilDarko
Member
What's surprising about this?
You get accents fork where you grow up?
Remember Bobby Jindal? To a lesser extent Aziz Ansari?
My parents are from India and my sisters and I talk like everyone else in my area of two US.
You get accents fork where you grow up?
Remember Bobby Jindal? To a lesser extent Aziz Ansari?
My parents are from India and my sisters and I talk like everyone else in my area of two US.
I really don't think OP had any harmful intentions from posting this video, which I found quite interesting. From my experience (born and raised in the South) the "drawl" to that extent is actually fairly uncommon among those of all ethnicities that grew up here, which is why it's neat to see it in this small Delta Chinese community.
Culture is funny that way.
PassiveObserver
Member
What accent were you expecting them to have?
Its about as weird as a white guy with a chinese accent. In other words yes its weird.