In chapter sixteen of the book, “East Main Street: Asian American popular culture” edited by Shilpa Dave, she argues that South Asians are the model minority and stereotyping goes beyond physical appearances. Using Apu from the television series The Simpsons as an example, she brings light that the voice behind this character is a White man who is using the practice of brown voice.
Out of all the different Asian races, South Asians are seen as the privileged minority due to the fact that their English is “an accessible dose of foreignness rather than an irritating form of speaking that resembles American English.” (p.317) South Asians do not speak in broken English like most other Asian cultures. Their way of speaking the dominant American language is through the use of a unique phonetic technique. They put stress on certain syllables in words that differ from American English. Dave also mentions that “sociolinguists such as Rosina Lippi-Green have chronicled how language and accent stereotyping influence social identity formation and how these stereotypes are reinforced by educational institutions and media outlets.” (p.316) She questions why people associate an accent with a stereotypic view on a race. Dave believes that anyone can imitate an accent. However, an imitation is far from sounding like the authentic one. Taking Apu as an example, people who have never heard a real South Asian accent, they would believe that the man behind Apu’s voice is a native or descent from the South Asian culture.
A key term in this chapter is “model minority”. Being the model minority means to be well adapted to American culture but not fully. As stated previously, South Asians are seen as the model minority because their English is extremely similar to American English. The words are mostly the same with the exception of stressing different syllables. South Asians are usually categorized as Asian America. However, they believe they should have their own category as South Asians due to their major differences in the rest of the Asian cultures.
The Canadian sitcom, Kim’s Convenience, a story that centers around a Korean Immigrant family who tries to make a living in the city of Toronto, is similar to this chapter in a way. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee plays Appa (the father) in the series and was interviewed about his character. He revealed that when you are Asian American in the film industry, they automatically ask about the different types of accents you can imitate. In this father role, he needed to imitate a Korean accent which he admitted was difficult due to the fact that he had been living in Canada ever since he was three months old. This goes to show that stereotyping goes beyond the physical aspect.