Dear Ms.

Hsu –
 
Thank you for your recent article “With Ads and Hashtags, Fighting Anti-Asian Hatred.” The racism
against Asian Americans has been around for generations.  However, because it rarely receives any
attention, it has thus been allowed to fester over the years and now rear its ugly head at greater
volumes in the current climate. So I am grateful that the New York Times is giving much-needed
attention to this, and I appreciate your good work.
 
At the same time, I would like to signal a linguistic fine-point in the article which I believe prolongs
systemic racism and reinforces implicit bias  Specifically, I would like to call your attention to the
following sentence:
 
“In a Pew Research Center survey, 58 percent of English-speaking Asian-American adults said
expressions of racist or insensitive views about Asians had become more common since the
pandemic began.”
 
To have to qualify Asian American adults as English speaking not only is a functional  non sequitur but
also reinforces demeaning stereotypes of Asian Americans as unintelligible “others.”  At a functional
level, an American cannot participate properly in this country without speaking English.  Even if one was
a naturalized citizen, one would have to pass the citizenship test in English. So why the additional
qualification?  Compared to other ethnic groups, the media generally does not refer to those being
surveyed as “English-speaking white Americans,” “ English-speaking Hispanic Americans,” “English
-speaking Black Americans,” and etc.  
 
However this qualification arose  – be it the original source, editing process, etc. – I wanted to draw your
attention to it since I believe that the media is a powerful influencer and because I think one way to
counter systemic racism is to pay close vigil to the power of how our language is used and to how it both
shapes and is shaped by the American subconscious.
 
Thank you.
 
Best,
Helen Ng