The Brazil Files: Conflict of Interest

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse

Before I utter any statements of depth in this piece, I have to present a bias. Though not meant to offend those who believe in proselytizing, I find myself firmly standing on the side of those against it. If you feel that religion and/or a faith tradition of some sort is your source of hope, guidance for life, and possibly even your ticket to eternal salvation, so be it. I respect that, and I fully honor the right we each have to practice some form of the aforementioned. However, the second you start telling me or someone else which form is best (read: which version will prevent me from burning in hell for the rest of eternity), we’ve got beef.

With that said, I want to go ahead and put it out there that I take issue with the bulk of missionary work (past and present), especially that which takes place in developing nations. It is a reminder of the power of nations who sit firmly and comfortably in their G8 seats, spectators in a game of international tennis. Only in the case of missionary work, the victory comes at a higher price, one that can mean not only renouncing one’s culture, but also one’s religion (or at least denouncing it in public) as a means of attaining vital resources. This is not to say that missionaries have not done good work. There are countless records of missionaries who have helped others in excellent ways, minus all the religious rhetoric. However, even if the message of faith lies in no more than an utterance or the simple presence of the mission’s name, missionary work nevertheless boils down to a political campaign in the name of God.

In light of my objection to this line of work, I find myself dealing with a mental conflict almost every day of my present job. My campaign has nothing to do with God, but in terms of international influence, the English language and American culture come pretty darn close. Though I have been teaching English in Brazil since July of 2008, there are still a few things about my current profession that rub me the wrong way. The source of my discomfort in teaching my mother tongue lies in implications more so than tangible, empirical evidence, thus making my inner turmoil all-the-more “inner.” Much like a mosquito bite on the sole of your foot, my conflict has been an itch I can’t quite scratch.

Before enrolling in the program in which I am involved, I already knew I wanted to live in Brazil for a few months to a year to have more exposure to Brazilian culture, particularly an aspect of it that involved more of the quotidian variety. I was looking to go beyond the favela-riddled, bikini-clad, beach bathing, rainforested Brazil with which we are presented on our television screens and in our Netflix queues. I wanted to be forced to speak Portuguese on a regular basis and pushed a bit beyond my comfort zone. I was not looking for a spoiled, privileged, escapist ex-pat experience of the Eat Pray Love genre.

The easiest way to achieve my goal was to teach English here, but I knew in the back of my mind, I would be presented with interesting challenges that I may not have faced if I had chosen another route to secure a job in Brazil. For one, I would have to be a de facto representative of American Culture ^TM. My language and my country would be placed center stage during class, but what Americans do, eat, buy, and think would be the main topic of conversation at all other times as well. I would be reduced to a living, breathing souvenir. Yet in actuality, I find myself to be a bit of a disappointment to my students and the Brazilian English teachers, not for lack of teaching skills, but for lack of conforming to their ideas of Americans and American life.

Before moving to Brazil, I lived in New York City for six years, so even my view of most Americans was one I took with foreign eyes. I often considered myself somewhat isolated from what most would consider “American culture” mainly because I had lived in NYC, which is clearly more of an international city than say Memphis, Tennessee, the city of my birth. I listen to Metronomy, Surkin, and J*Davey instead of Rihanna, Fall Out Boy, and Snoop Dogg (all of whom have achieved considerable success in Brazil thanks to MTV). I have a considerable amount of tattoos. I am a vegetarian who likes international food. I am agnostic. I am not a fan of Nike, Tommy, or any popular clothing brands. I am not a classic American beauty. And on top of all that, I am black, which still throws some people for a loop here in Brazil because most people assume I am Brazilian until I open my mouth.

Though Brazil’s access to American media has expanded rapidly thanks to globalization, the films, music, and popular culture to which Brazilians are exposed is clearly the dominate culture, of which I do not really consider myself a part. The idea of Americans that many Brazilians have as a result of this type of media is not exactly the most accurate. We are considered arrogant, ignorant, and overweight on the one hand, but filthy rich, glamorous, and perfect on the other. There is very little room for anything from the margins, and even what is thought to be “alternative” is still the same old simulacra. Nevertheless, I have to put on a happy face and endure countless questions related to the subjects above, only to be followed by my response, which is usually something like “I have no idea who that is. I download my music from European blogs. Sorry!” or “Well, no, I don’t eat bacon in the morning, because I don’t eat meat, not even the white kind, which I know is not considered meat here.”

And though the questions can be tiring, I can understand why they are asked. What is more exhausting is processing the reality that as a result of the onslaught and heavy influence of American mainstream media by way of music, films, and other forms of entertainment (including sports), many elements of Brazilian culture are becoming a non-entity in the eyes of many young Brazilians. Brazilian televised news devotes about a fourth of their broadcasts to American politics. Brazilian culture, as the world becomes flat and so easily navigable because of the internet, is being quickly altered to closely resemble ours. Unfortunately, I am caught in the middle. I represent another side of American culture, which can be a good thing for my students, but I am American nonetheless, and some will never see me as anything more than that.

I have somewhat come to terms with my curio status, and at times celebrate it, mainly when Americans show a sign of intelligence in their choices (ahem Obama), but other times, I feel that my presence symbolizes a modern neo-imperialism, though through culture and language as opposed to direct territorial or financial dominance (albeit, those still play a major part in the case of Brazilian/American relations). There are zillions of English schools throughout the country, some of which have a direct link to the United States Embassy, and many Brazilians see learning English as a means of improving their lives, especially in terms of career success. Many of my adult and teenage students alike say that they are taking English in hopes of securing a good job in the future.

Yet in this time of greedy linguistic and cultural consumption, I worry of the looming backlash. I have some students who explicitly reject any and all aspects of American culture and are generally disgusted by Americans, save me (as an exception because I am their teacher), but who are begrudgingly taking English as language skills are seen as one of the few ways to separate oneself from the competition. Even some of my youngest students admit that they are only taking English because their parents are making them, unaware that their budding skill may help them put food on the table in a decade or two.

Seeing this saddens me and further fortifies my personal belief that though clearly beneficial in the long term, teaching English is its own form of missionary work. The parallels to missionary work that are demonstrated in terms of some students’ reluctance to learn when coupled with a frightening pressure to do exactly that in order to simply stay occupationally and culturally afloat worry me. In addition, access to recreational English classes are afforded only to middle and upper class Brazilians, which has previously caused a rift between some English teachers applying to work in Brazil and a few of the Brazilian consulate offices who believe that access to learning English and the skills thus acquired are deepening the divide between the rich and the poor. From what I have seen, I find it hard to disagree. And that’s speaking toward language studies in both Brazil and the United States.

In New York City, maniacal parents have infants who can barely articulate basic monosyllabic words in English taking baby French and baby German so their children will have a better chance of entering elite, private academic and hyper-selective public schools, and even then, nothing is guaranteed. Yet in general, beyond the basic needs met by pre-vacation language book purchases, i.e. how do you say “where is the bathroom?” few Americans are breaking their necks to learn any other language, despite our growing immigrant population. We barely have a handle on English, so God forbid we make an effort to devote attention to some foreign “babble” that we don’t need to speak anyway, right? “This is America. Speak English,” so goes the motto. Yet in our stubbornness to learn another language and general indifference to the prospect of our society and culture changing dramatically as a result of immigration and the expansion of 2nd-generation families in the next few decades, we are doing ourselves a grave disservice.

As a teacher of English in Brazil who already speaks Portuguese, I am a rare breed. Even my students were shocked that I had taken a time to learn a language that, in their words, everyone always just confuses with Spanish. In addition to the language surprise, my students were also interested in the fact that I had been to Brazil several times before, and knew that Brazil was about more than Carnaval. But despite these differences, the things that set me apart from other teachers they had previously had, I still wondered if intent mattered at this point.

In being an “unusual” American to them, there is an obvious benefit, but the shame that sometimes comes with my nationality, due mainly to the international reception of our behavior and the aggressive promotion of our culture abroad, can outweigh any good I intend to do as a teacher. In recognizing the big picture, I may be overanalyzing, but in being a part of this neo-imperialist process, whether or not I have direct control in it, I still have days when I am uncomfortable with my work. I know that I am empowering my students with a valuable skill that will earn them considerable respect in the future, but I wish that more of my fellow countrymen were making an attempt to be more connected to the world as well, instead of continuing to spread American culture with their blinders on.

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Comments

Jo wrote:

While I liked this post, it also made me sad. I’m a Brazilian who moved to the US at a young age and I’ve been gradually losing not only my Portuguese but my Brazilian-ness. I like your attitude though and how you view Brazilians, so many people have a hard time defining us.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 12:11 pm ¶
Monie wrote:

“I have some students who explicitly reject any and all aspects of American culture and are generally disgusted by Americans”

Wow, that could describe me about 90% of the time.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 12:30 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

The missionary connection resonates with me big time. It is commonplace among white university graduates here in Canada, including self styled ‘leftists’, to teach English in China and Korea for a year or two without ever interrogating the project’s messed up implications. The stories I hear from those who return sound like contemporary versions of classic imperialist adventure.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 1:25 pm ¶
RandomGuy wrote:

I have really enjoyed this. Recently, my disdain for Neo-Imperialism has grown after spending time in Peru, especially because of the westernized beauty standards which penetrate and perpetuate through out other cultures. However, for some reason I haven’t realized how much teaching of English is component of what I claim to hate so much. Maybe, because I too see learning English as a means of survival.

That aside, I’m really interested to hear more, the race aspect in particular. One thing that you acknowledged that stood out to me was that you’re often mistaken for Brazilian. It’s so sad that most people don’t understand the culture and racial diversity that’s in Brazil.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 1:52 pm ¶
rob wrote:

I dont get why you would be uncomfortable about teaching english. Is it because you feel that the students are being forced by global influences into learning the language? I think it is good for everyone to be able to speak in as many languages as possible and at least the brazilians and chinese jvan is talking about will be able to understand more about what they are facing. Is it maybe not striking back at ‘the man’ to enable some of ‘his’ would be victims to fight back.

Information is vital and english skills are a passport to the rest of the world rather like latin was in the olden days when rich europeans would converse amongst themselves in latin, the lingua franca(!) of the enlightenment.

People coming back from teaching in china may sound a bit like imperial stories, jvan, but I know people who have done the same thing and when you get to a large chinese city or rural village and the food is strange the mannerisms are strange you cant read the signs or understand newspapers or conversations and maybe for the first time in your life you are completely and utterly alone and out of your comfort zone, it might not be suprising that people feel like they have triumphed in a great adventure when they get home. If their language and stories seem a bit off to you imagine the stories one of the chinese or brazilian students would tell if they were suddenly whisked off to your home town to teach in your local school and eat your mothers (manna to you but inedible to a rural chinese guy) signature holiday dish.

But to go back to the article I find it astonishing that in this day and age people are being forced to convert religions to get aid and assistance. And if the missionaries know the people are just going through the motions then doesnt that make the whole god thing utterly utterly pointless? Are they relying on high numbers of converts to sustain funding? What would they do if the converted reverted?

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 1:54 pm ¶
rob wrote:

monie. strong words…

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 1:56 pm ¶
Logan wrote:

Speaking on my ESL experience and working in China, on your thoughts:

I have a more, for the lack of a better term, a fatalistic view of the world. America and its influence, and the penetration of English, are here to stay and while it’s not a requirement to pick up the language, a basic understanding of it goes a real long way. In my travels in China and Taiwan, and my friend’s travels in Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Vietnam, and over most of South East Asia, you can get by with just knowing English, or very basic phrases in the country’s native language (although some countries like Laos and Taiwan I believe, English is a required second/third language, so most younger people will end up speaking it and being interested in it). Among teens and college students, being from America or Australia or Canada or England makes you extremely popular and interesting (in my times out, I’ve had more than my share of people asking me to pose with them because I was white). While there are minor counter-movements to the penetration of American culture (such as non-foreigners clubs), the penetration of the language and culture is here, and combined with the globalization and connection with the rest of the world, is not going anywhere.

Pretty much, the worst that can happen by teaching the language is what is happening right now, and the machine keeps going forward. I don’t believe there’s any stopping it, so the best thing to do is to adapt to it rather than to fight it. I’ll say that the reason I’m over here in China right now is because of the penetration of Asian influences, from video games about the Three Kingdoms era to Anime in Japan to the friends I made a couple years ago in Taiwan on a Culture Camp to my history professor on the history of Japanese Culture. The kids and adults you educate today very well could influence many Americans tomorrow and encourage them to seek out new cultures. My primary reason for coming here, to learn the language (which, I won’t go into specifics on, but Chinese is one of the 5 most difficult languages in the world to learn as a native English speaker), is because I want to teach about Chinese history at a collegiate level to influence other students about history beyond America and Europe. While I can’t say I never would’ve came to China, and won’t later go to Taiwan if I never made friends with our (the Culture Camp’s) guides there, I will say that it did play a major role in deciding my current path.

In any case, I don’t really see anything wrong with being over here nor any conflict of interest myself. I disagree with your assessment of American influence to the darker side of missionary work, because I believe that the adaption and in some cases adoption of American influences only causes the culture to evolve and adapt, not to be eradicated like in the examples you provided. Even if the cultural impact was equivalent to the dark side of missionary work, the question I’d ask myself is are my students better or worse off in the world if they know English. Without question, I would answer better.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 2:09 pm ¶
LAllen wrote:

Wendi,

Thank you for taking the time to write this very well thought out piece. As an American who has spent significant time working and studying abroad in India and a student of “development” in general, I have found myself constantly conflicted about my role in such a foreign country and the implications of even my presence. I think the most valuable lesson I’ve learned from living abroad is just a heightened awareness of how incredibly complex even seemingly benevolent or non-invasive actions can be, and this in general has left me often feeling hopeless despite my deep desire to do good. I have felt though, moments and experiences, as I’m sure you also have as a teacher, where I felt useful, appreciated, and like there was genuine learning and cooperation across whatever cultural or interpersonal divide might exist. Ultimately, I think I’ve realized that the most important thing is that you critically engage with your role when you’re working abroad, examine why you’re there, what good you’re doing. And it seems like you’re working hard at doing that, as well as teaching.

Thank you for sharing.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 2:15 pm ¶
Jessie wrote:

Is the accompanying photo of the stereotypical blonde caucasian teacher meant to ironically contrast student expectations of an American English teacher with the reality of this American English teacher, or is someone being slovenly with the clip art?

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 2:36 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Jessie –

Wendi chose the photo to accompany her piece.

@Rob –

I think it is good for everyone to be able to speak in as many languages as possible

And that’s the rub. Most Americans aren’t fluent in another language. We’re also less likely to posess passports. While your point is fine, it glosses over the power dynamics in what languages are considered essential and which ones are considered expendable, which is particularly horrifying as I believe we lose approximately 200 languages each year to disuse.

@Wendi -

Great piece. I am toying with something similar for the cultural appropriation series, talking about “colonized languages.” I find it interesting how so many other nations have a pop culture scene that assumes some familiarity of the English language. I think it speaks to what you were talking about the globalization of culture.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 2:44 pm ¶
Paz wrote:

Wendi,
I went to Brazil as well, and I felt weird teaching English just because I felt like the priests who came to teach the Indians in the “New World” about Christianity. Especially since I was teaching low-income middle school kids, who most likely, will not go on to college in Canada or the US.
But the, Rob does have a point in that it is great for anyone, regardless of nationality, to learn another language. And it may be imperialist, but knowing English does open a lot of doors for anyone.
While American culture does impact Brazil, my experience was that the people there are very proud of their culture. (Perhaps because I was there during World Cup, where everything was yellow and green, lol).

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 2:51 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:

Missionaries have been trying raise Indians from “savagery” to “civilization” for 500 years, of course. Here’s a good essay on the subject from Indian Country Today:

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/39555437.html

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:07 pm ¶
CMyers wrote:

I felt the same way when I was in Brazil, but I realized that language can also be empowering. for example, I found that Afro-Brazilians resented being called “negro” or “negra.” It was considered a derogatory term, everyone wanted to be something other than “negro.” But many Afro-Brazilians actually like being called “Black.” It’s almost a status symbol for them– an indication of their conciousness, their closeness with other Africans throughout the world, especially Black Americans. Even the magazine RAZA uses the term Black.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:16 pm ¶
GENQ10 wrote:

@Logan- “Among teens and college students, being from America or Australia or Canada or England makes you extremely popular and interesting (in my times out, I’ve had more than my share of people asking me to pose with them because I was white).”

You don’t see any problem with that? That people think you’re somehow special or interesting because you’re white? I have to tell you, I have several African-American friends who studied abroad in China and I can tell you that their reception was nowhere near as “positive”.

I agree with you, Wendi. I was going to go to Latin American to help teach English in an American school, but I ended up not going. I’m going there soon to study at a University, mainly because I think Spanish is one of the most important languages to know, especially as an American, but I was deeply conflicted about whether it was “right” to teach English. While for economic reasons, it makes sense that English would become the international lingua franca, logically it makes no sense. There are nowhere near as many native English speakers as there are speakers of Mandarin or Spanish. Also, English is not phonetic; it takes native English speakers 3 times as long to become literate in English as it does for the speakers of other European languages. Basically, it’s a poor choice for an international language. While it’s great to know many languages, I see the preference for English-language instruction in some developing nations as a form of cultural imperialism.

And I do wish we would stop exporting our popular culture abroad. It’s pretty awful stuff, and it gives the international community a false understanding of what America is.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:18 pm ¶
rob wrote:

Latoya,

it is very difficult to learn to speak a foreign language without immersing your self it it. You really need to hear the sounds all the time. However learning to READ languages is actually much easier (not with english and our strange spellings though). Once you have learnt a little of how to read and write in a language then it is much easier to learn to speak it when the oppourtunity arises. And you can read the papers(always very informative) Thats how it works for me anyway.

Regarding the power dynamics of languages. Language is a fluid and ever changing thing. The english of 500 years ago is a very different language to the one we have today. The fact that languages are lost is of course a shame but the fact is that unless people are interested in preserving them these minority languages will disappear. But this has happened so many countless times over history. Maybe one day thousands of years from now english will be a forgotten tongue.

Preservation of dying languages is interesting historically but if the native speakers become too few in number the language ceases to have practical uses and will disappear.

In the uk welsh has had a resurgence and many young welsh people can gab away quite happily in it. Public signs are bi-lingual and official documents are as well. This has been acheived quite rapidly and shows what can be done. Of course the welsh people are no less proficient in english because of this and they have a private language between themselves which is something people who only speak english do not have(a shame for them). If everybody (potentially) speaks english whatever you say on the bus can be understood by anybody. If you speak something as impenetrable to the untrained ear as welsh no one can possibly have a clue. It is very nice to be able to speak privately in public and this alone may be enough to interest enough people to save the language. A bit like kids made up languages like ‘backslang’, to fool teachers, which i vaguely remember from school. Anybody else remember that?

On a side note, what about sign language? I know us and british sign language differs. How crazy is that? What about chinese sign language? And do, for example, black and white americans use slightly different signage? I never thought about it until just now but it might be interesting to see some analysis on it.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:21 pm ¶
GENQ10 wrote:

@Rob
Different countries have different sign language, the same way they have different languages, why is that crazy? And why would you assume that black and white Americans have different ways of signing? There is only one American Sign Language.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:32 pm ¶
AintIAWoman wrote:

GREAT post. Really. I have friends who are currently or are considering teaching English abroad, and while its not a BAD thing, I have found myself slightly uncomfortable with the idea although I wasn’t sure why…was I being hypersensitive? I didnt feel like I was able to express what made me uncomfortable about it all. Anyway, your piece has been thoughtful and given me a lot to ponder.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:50 pm ¶
rob wrote:

genq10

dont you think its a bit odd that two countries with virtually identical spoken language would have developed seperate sign language relatively recently? Surely it would be a better idea to have sign language as an internation way of communicating. Maybe its even better than a spoken language as there is no learning how to say the words. Hmm.

And where am i assuming only black and white americans sign differently? I said it was only an example and i thought seeing as this is a us blog there was a chance someone reading might know something about it.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:55 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

I wonder if the concern over the impact of American culture is a bit misplaced.

The reason is that American culture — however defined — influences others, but is influenced by others as well. The process has never been one-way, although it is certainly true that American media, for all kinds of reasons, is in the more powerful position.

But look at it this way. What is “Brazilian culture” or “American culture,” really? What happens if Brazilians take aspects of American culture and make it their own? Perhaps creating something new, and just as Brazilian?

New Orleans cuisine is influenced by French, Spanish, Native American and African / African American ingredients and flavors. But it is American and could have happened nowhere else.

That cuisine has made its way around the country in all sorts of small ways — though many people don’t bother to notice. (When I was a child I had never seen a crayfish eaten — you don’t eat them in New England, and now they are common in Fairway Market in NYC).

Knowing those influences, is creole cuisine any less so? Any less itself for having spread? Any less itself for continuing to evolve?

I sometimes think that, as an American who came to New York, who sees herself as “different” (that is, out of mainstream, cf. the veg diet and tattoos) you went to Brazil expecting that the country was some kind of fly in amber, that there was some “authentic” Brazilian culture to experience and learn. But what’s “authentic” anyway? If you worked as an expat banker would your experience be any less authentic, necessarily? Yeah, there are all sorts of privileged jobs like that where you can hide away among American expats. But you have to choose to do that. And you’re not so different from other Americans, when you think about it. That’s no bad thing. You didn’t choose to be born in the US. Don’t sweat it.

Think of Japan. There’s a culture that has enthusiastically embraced all things American, and has embraced many western things for 100 years. Even words in the language are identifiably French, German, and English. (”Pan” = bread, “Arubaito” = part-time work [cf. German "Arbeit"] and “Biru” = either building or beer, depending on context).

Yet nobody would argue that Japanese culture is in danger of disappearing, even though many people there strive to learn English. It’s a modern industrial nation with all the contradictions that implies, and the culture is and always will be Japanese. And their cultural influence on movies in the US has become so pervasive that action movies — especially in science fictional settings — take many plot cues and the “look” right out of anime.

Brazil is not quite in the same power-relation viz. the US, but it isn’t like the Brazilians are helpless either. And their culture will have its effect on the US, and American culture, and one day there may be a dozen Brazilian Portuguese words in the language that only language nerds will know the origins of. Think of the popularity of capoeira. It’s worked its way into a dozen places where nobody even notices its origins anymore, especially in modern dance.

Yes, English has become the lingua franca of business and politics. My mother is old enough to remember when State Department employees were all required to learn French (and many acronyms at the UN reflect that dominance). When my grandfather started his scientific career in chemistry German was a requirement for advancement (German remained the lingua franca of chemists and physicists until WW II, and getting published in German was a sign you had arrived).

Before that it was French, then Latin in the West, Arabic in North Africa and the Middle East and Chinese in eastern Asia. A century from now it could change again. Who knows? Perhaps Spanish will re-establish itself in the Western Hemisphere. These things can change faster than we think.

I think it sad that most Americans are determinedly monolingual (as are many Brits) but it seems a function of not just cultural dominance — after all, the same was true 150 years ago, when only the tiniest fraction of Americans traveled abroad (heck, few people of any kind did so). Some of it is because getting to a foreign nation from the US has always been a bit expensive if you aren’t on the coasts. And there are only two countries that border us. No ability or incentive to travel usually means most wont have passports and learning a foreign tongue — valuable as it is — is seen as a frill.

People forget that it wasn’t until very recently that you could get out of the country for less than $1,000, inflation-adjusted (for example, when I went to Europe with a friend after college in 1991, the plane ticket was $600, the cheapest we could get. That’s $900 today — the price of travel has dropped a lot in the last fifteen years).

I wouldn’t worry about teaching English as missionary work in quite the way you do. Because you’re giving people a skill that is darned useful. And while it reflects the dominance of American culture — or at least, the dominance of American business (not the same thing) — well, so what? You can’t change it, it won’t change tomorrow, and isn’t it better that some Brazilian kids learn something that will help them navigate that stuff? I think you’re doing something pretty damned good.

I lived in London for a couple of years. And it was there I realized that being from New York, I was from the most American city of all. The same could be said of LA, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore — those cities that we sometimes call international — they could happen nowhere else the way they do in the US. I could not have existed anywhere else. And probably, neither could you. Revel in it. Celebrate it. And know that as these kids learn English, I will bet dollars to donuts that they will be the ones changing American culture in a few decades in ways we can’t predict. Culture is far from static.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 3:56 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

How much of the desire that Brazil (or any other place) maintain its own culture is for our sake? Human beings will appropriate what they like and forgo what they don’t absent force or coercion and in the process transform. Human beings everywhere are capable of making a determination regarding what is in their personal or social self-interest and the consequences of a choice one way or the other. Proof of this is the divergent reactions to America that Wendi experienced. Let’s honor choice (btw, re missionaries – the message is never the problem; an absence of choice is)

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:05 pm ¶
Kristen wrote:

I had a lot of these thoughts a few years ago when I considered going to Japan or China to teach English. On the one hand, I recognized that learning English would give students opportunities, but on the other hand, I felt like a part of something that was not necessarily as respectful of Japanese or Chinese cultures as the individual teachers involved are. Even if I as a teacher took language classes, tried to improve my fluency while there and walked away with a deeper cultural awareness, the fact remained that it wasn’t really a two-way street. After all, Japanese students don’t come to the US to teach in public schools here, at least not in any nationwide programs like JET is in Japan.

@Rob
There seems to be a common misperception that sign languages are “made up” languages, like someone sat down and made up a language for deaf people to use. Actually, sign language developed within deaf communities in various countries and then became codified. For example, Abbe Charles Michel de L’Epee in Paris worked with the deaf and used signs they already had when creating his own system to standardize sign language. If the development of sign language were simply a top-down process, then it might make sense for it to be like Esperanto, but it isn’t.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:08 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

I definitely agree with your analysis of English-language-teaching as a potentially colonizing endeavor.

The worst part is when you end up with a white-dominated expatriate culture that uses the opportunity to lord it over the natives. I think that’s more of a problem in Asian countries than it is across Latin America, though. When I spent a summer in Mexico City and considered staying staying there longer, I found that the expatriates were a pretty diverse bunch… even the ones just from the United States were really mixed in their demographics and in their reason for being there.

On the other hand, I’ve heard stories about the English-teaching expatriate “scene” in Japan and Korea that make me feel like throwing up.

However, like a lot of other fishy endeavors, I think people have to ask… is there something gained by not participating?

I don’t think so. When native English-speakers don’t go and teach English in these countries, that would affect the supply, but there’s no affect on the demand. People still want to learn English. They’ll just pay higher prices for lower-quality instruction. That was a frequent complaint that I encountered in Mexico… that in the lower-quality English schools, the teachers could barely speak English themselves and the students felt like they were getting ripped off.

Ultimately, I think it’s one of those systems that needs to be analyzed and criticized, but boycotting it wouldn’t solve anything.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:09 pm ¶
rob wrote:

kristen.

thanks for the info on the history of sign language but im still confused as to how different the us and british sign languages actually are because its two very similar cultures the ‘inventors’ would have been living in, and surely us sign language must be at least partly top down created to have occoured over such a large country in such a relatively short time? But im only guessing.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:29 pm ¶
Taryn wrote:

Excellent post Wendi. Thank you so much!I just wrote an essay and had to debate the pros of bilingual language for Children. I believe the point that some people are missing is Culture. Yes, being multilingual is a good thing. However when people come to America they must “assimilate” to the “american culture” which basically means you strip away your own culture to conform to the majority. Not only are we doing that here but we are taking all our “culture” abroad. yikes.
The PROBLEM with that is “Language is an important element of culture. Individuals who speak the language of their home culture find it gives a sense of identity and strengthens their connection to their culture. Vocabulary, phrases, intonation, and even gestures combine to express cultural values and beliefs. Language is critical for maintaining cultures, and so the united Nations Declaration of Human Rights recognizes language as a basic human right. When a person loses their home language, they lose a part of their cultural identity.” (Roots and Wings by Stacey York 2003
We need to realize that as Americans that learning language isn’t just about getting ahead or getting a better job it also is interwoven with social, cognitive learning and it needs to be culturally responsible.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:32 pm ¶
Daniel wrote:

Interesting Article.

I wanted to post a long comment but Jess pretty much said nearly all I wanted to typed as well as Rob with the part regarding languages. I too know of an elder who had a scientific career and pretty much needed to know German.
A lot of people seem to either not know or forgot that what is “American” largely did come from somewhere else or if it was uniquely created here based on ideals coming from somewhere, either in Europe, Africa, Asia and among the Natives throughout the Americas.

In some way, if people could investigate throughly American society, history and many other realms…it shouldn’t be a surprise why it has quite a huge global attraction. There are many ugly sides but there are many positive aspects as well.

However, I also admit that mainstream media culture and some aspects of Academia doesn’t do justice to this topic.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:36 pm ¶
rob wrote:

Taryn are you saying people who learn english, spanish or french need to be culturally aware and respectful of the societies these languages came from? And does this change if you are learning australian english or nigerean english, portugese portugese or brazillian portugese? Ideally learning a language should be fun. Its also easier then. Learning to swear in a foreign language is a good place to start!

Language although precious to one person is just a tool to another and to insist that the learned language respects where it came from would stifle change and development. Something impossible in a living language.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:51 pm ¶
Big Man wrote:

I’ve never understood why some folks are so bothered that somebody thinks they are going to hell.

I can understand if somebody feels the need to randomnly condemn you to hell out of the blue. That would be annoying.

But, if somebody’s belief system says that if you don’t meet certain criteria, you’re going to hell, why is that a big deal?

It’s their personal belief. Your personal belief contradicts their belief. So, you all have conflicting belief systems. Unless they are trying to force you to live by their belief system, why is that a problem?

Just curious.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 5:29 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

Jess, that view of cultural hybridity you’re talking about is a bit Pollyanna-ish.

Cultural hybridity isn’t intrinsically bad. It isn’t intrinsically good, either.

The people on top of the pyramid have a lot of control and power over how much culture they allow to be imported. They’ve got the booming national film industry and the money to make high production value movies expressing their cultural values. They can promote their language and celebrate their culture through a huge variety of powerful institutions.

The people on the bottom of the pyramid have none of that. They often experience cultural hybridity as loss and theft, not as enrichment.

I’m a multiracial third-culture kid, so I’m a creature of hybridity. I absolute appreciate that the U.S. is more welcoming to people like me than a lot of other countries. But what’s good for me isn’t necessarily good for everyone else.

This reminds me of a huge, loud argument I had while on an inter-nightclub taxicab ride in a beach town in Mexico. I was in the cab with three Mexicans and an Austrian. Once he found out I was an American, out of nowhere, the Austrian started angrily denouncing American cultural imperialism and saying how crappy American movies were ruining everything. I started getting irritated at his rude tone and began defending my country. The Mexicans hung back, interested in the outcome and enjoying the sparks.

I said I was willing to take this kind of critique from a Mexican but not from an Austrian… his countrypeople were quite capable of CHOOSING to see a Michael Haneke film, but would rather patronize “Exploding Breasts 2: The Quickening” or some similarly despicable mind-rotting American import. Then I said at least WE didn’t burn Jews on the weekend for fun. He said “that was a long time ago” in a subdued voice and was completely quiet for the rest of the ride.

It was really mean of me to say that, but I was so mad I couldn’t help it.

Anyway, if the transmission of culture is always corrupting and evil, that’s a naive view… it also reduces humans to helplessly passive victims. Even the most powerless people at the bottom of the economy still find ways to negotiate culture. But the opposite view — that the transmission of culture is benign, and cultural imperialism is a bogeyman — that’s similarly naive. Languages are inextricably interwoven with things like armies and bank loans and fortified borders that only let the right people in and out.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 5:32 pm ¶
chingona wrote:

I really related to this post as a Peace Corps volunteer who had and has reservations about many aspects of what Peace Corps is and does but who also had a lot of positive experiences and feels there is/was some value to the work I did. The main reason I wanted to do Peace Corps was because I wanted to live in another country for an extended period of time and not have an “ex-pat” experience where I primarily lived and socialized with other foreigners. I specifically and emphatically DID NOT want to teach English, particularly in an environment where people were very unlikely to have any use for it. (I did health education in a small farming village.) But I still had to deal with a lot of the conflicted feelings you describe. And I hope I’m not derailing the thread. It’s not my intent to start a big debate about Peace Corps, American imperialism, development theory, etc. (though these are all topics I have a lot to say about, the short answer, of course, is that it’s complicated).

Thanks for a very thoughtful post.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

@Kristen–

w/r/t Japan– remember there is a cultural aspect to this as well. That is, the Japanese, for all kinds of historical reasons, weren’t very outward-looking as a group over time. They never sent ships to explore the Pacific, for example, even though they were perfectly able to do so — and traveling outside the country was expressly forbidden for 300 years under the Shogunate.

Not a whole lot of Japanese people went to live in Korea, for instance, even though the government tried to encourage it. (Compare this to the hundreds of thousands of white French Algerians, or white Dutch and English people in South Africa — I don’t think there was a real equivalent in Japan of Japanese Koreans — certainly not in anywhere near the same numbers relative to the population).

So it isn’t like France or Spain, the Netherlands or England, where you have all those languages spoken in widely separated spots. As far as I know, Japanese never really became that kind of colonial lingua franca, even in the interwar period.

When I was in Japan, and when I speak to Japanese people about it, it’s almost like the idea of spreading he language that way never even occurred to them. They simply chalk it up to the language being exceptionally difficult to learn (have to admit, I never found it any worse than some, though the writing system is a headache) and seem to sort of give up.

Now, some of this is sort of racist — when I, a western-looking person, spoke Japanese, the reaction was often “Look, dear, the chimp can speak! Do you think he knows how to use chopsticks too?”

Some of it though, is that the idea of “prosletyzing” via language doesn’t seem to resonate there the way it does in the West. I mean, when I suggested sending out armies of Japanese people to teach the language they all looked at me like I was crazy.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 6:10 pm ¶
Restructure! wrote:

@atlasien:

Then I said at least WE didn’t burn Jews on the weekend for fun. He said “that was a long time ago” in a subdued voice and was completely quiet for the rest of the ride.

LOL

Anyway, if the transmission of culture is always corrupting and evil, that’s a naive view… it also reduces humans to helplessly passive victims. Even the most powerless people at the bottom of the economy still find ways to negotiate culture. But the opposite view — that the transmission of culture is benign, and cultural imperialism is a bogeyman — that’s similarly naive. Languages are inextricably interwoven with things like armies and bank loans and fortified borders that only let the right people in and out.

I definitely agree with you. There is the issue of choice. Is your culture changing because you as an individual go out and learn new things, or is it changing because somebody is forcing an entire ethnic group to assimilate via residential schools? I’m not sure which category Wendi’s situation falls under; maybe it’s a mixture?

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 6:35 pm ¶
Kristen wrote:

@Rob: ASL grammar is different than that of American English. It’s not the case that you can translate sentences from American English word for word into ASL. I’m not familiar with BSL, so I can’t tell you more about that, but in ASL the basic word order is “subject object verb”, whereas it’s “subject verb object” in AE. ASL is really a distinct language and wasn’t developed as a signed version of American English. The same is true of the development of BSL. That’s why BSL and ASL aren’t as similar to each other as British and American English are: BSL and ASL aren’t just versions of English at all. I hope this helps!

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 6:47 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

“I mean, when I suggested sending out armies of Japanese people to teach the language they all looked at me like I was crazy.”

Well, in the imperialist era that’s exactly what happened. Japanese colonialists used to own the majority of Korean arable land. The Japanese language was forced on Koreans in schools. Up to 10% of Koreans were pressured into abandoning their Korean last names and changing them into Japanese. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were shipped to Japan for indentured labor.

Things are a lot different today, but it really wasn’t all that long ago. The period of cultural-imperialism-as-policy was shorter than that of European nations, but it was highly concentrated and extremely violent.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 6:52 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

altasien–

I don’t think cultural imperialism is a bogeyman, per se, but I do think that we have to be careful of assuming cultures are static and that there is some “pure” culture out there that someone is part of by their genetic code.

Do those at the top have the power to decide many things about culture? Hell yes. But it never seems to work out quite the way elites expect.

For instance. We speak English in the US. Why? The rulers of England didn’t speak English (or anything like it) for 500 years, and there was no reason for them to. High culture from 1066 on was Norman — they spoke Norman (or to be more precise, a variant of French that became Anglo-Norman). Courts, administration, church affairs– all that wasn’t in English.

But by the time of Henry VIII, the kings and nobles all spoke English (among other things). But if the French speakers ruled the roost, why did they end up with English? Why isn’t England (and later Great Britain, the US, Australia and Canada) French-speaking? Or speaking some variant?

The Normans thought Saxon (and the variants that would later become English) were beneath them. Two hundred years later they were sponsoring Chaucer.

In a more modern context, American culture has a huge dominance (as well as that of Europe and Japan). But India has become pretty strong in this regard as well. China also. .

Also, American culture isn’t particularly static either. Think of all the things that were considered “low class” not so long ago. Take hip-hop. When I was a kid hip-hop was for the ghetto and wasn’t considered important — working class black and latin kids were into it, but you wouldn’t see it in the suburbs. Now it’s part of the huge cultural export Americans send abroad. It has become, in a way, the establishment. That’s oversimplified, but you get the idea.

One of the assumptions implicit when talking about cultural imperialism seems to be that the situation is static and unchangeable. That isn’t true, I don’t think. Nor is it true that there is an such thing as ur-culture that one is part of via biology. Especially in a country like Brazil (or the US, or Australia, or anyplace with a long history of immigration).

And while culture and language are intertwined, it doesn’t automatically mean they are linked in lockstep. You speak English (and I bet it is your L1, right?) but that doesn’t mean you like bangers and mash and have a burning desire to see Manchester United play. People from Peru and the Dominican Republic both speak Spanish, but I wouldn’t describe those cultures as the same by any stretch.

What would happen in the US if the population of Spanish-speakers doubles? You think that might have some effect? It’s already common in most big cities to have Spanish-language media.

Fast forward a generation. Assume trends continue. What would that look like? Bet you money it won’t be the same. Will that culture no longer be American?

Like I said, I understand that cultural imperialism exists, and the effects it can have. But I also think the power dynamic isn’t as cut-and-dried as it seems. There are numerous historical examples of when it wasn’t.

Your story of the argument in the cab — well, at one level, aren’t you assuming that the Mexicans have no agency there? Much of the “Americanization” I have seen in other countries tends to be limited to a relatively narrow slice of the population — the ones who can afford to go to movies and buy TVs and video games. That may or may not hold over time.

(Though I was sort of with you on the Jews thing. But I have a more personal connection there).

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 7:00 pm ¶
Jessica wrote:

Interesting you mention no one in america is trying to learn another language.

I am here busting my hindside to learn Spanish. I feel like crap when I cant spend the half hour with my pimsluers speaking guide. Been studying and still can’t speak. Can’t afford to do a study abroad either.

I am currently taking ( and failing ) Chinese. It is apprent to me I will need to do some independent study for this class after I fininsh the semester. There are few popular sites to help one learn Chinese in an easy, succint manner. Spanish came out of nowhere for me when I was in HS, I will not let Chinese do that to me. God help the world when they need to learn Chinese to survive.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 7:43 pm ¶
Baiskeli wrote:

I have a funny story. I was talking to a friend in swahili on a train once here, when a gentleman got on the train and begun complaining about all the damn immigrants moving here and can’t speak a damn word of English After he made the This is America, speak English or get the hell out comment, assuming we didn’t speak any, I put up my finger to stop my conversation with my friend, turned to the guy and said I know enough English to tell you to GO FUCK YOURSELF!. I then turned back to the conversation. All I could hear was giggling by some of the other passengers.

It was one of the few times I’ve actually cursed someone but God it felt good.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 7:55 pm ¶
[dave] wrote:

hey great post, thanks for this. summed a bunch of uncomfortable thoughts that i’ve had since living outside of the US for 5 years.

its worth mentioning that this sort of thought will feel really good to have in your head when/if you come back. i think living outside of the country, while sometimes a luxury, can really make you better at “getting” both folks who have never left the country and then also give you real empathy for people who’ve left everything they know behind.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 8:52 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

“thanks for the info on the history of sign language but im still confused as to how different the us and british sign languages actually are because its two very similar cultures the ‘inventors’ would have been living in, and surely us sign language must be at least partly top down created to have occoured over such a large country in such a relatively short time? But im only guessing.”

American Sign Language was largely based on French Sign Language — the first school for the deaf in the US was run by people who had studied how de L’Eppee taught the deaf in Paris, along with a few of his students. Then that French Sign Language was modified somewhat by the teachers, and combined with the sign languages that the students already used (particularly the one from Martha’s Vineyard — there was a history of hereditary deafness on Martha’s Vineyard, and thus there was a sign language in use there, and many of the first students at the Hartford school were from the Vineyard.) Those students became the next generation of teachers, and ASL gradually became standardized. (Sort of. There are still definitely dialects, largely based on the different deaf schools. There are something like five different signs for pizza and about 20 for birthday.)

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 8:57 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:

re: jessica (comment no. 35):
i do not say that “no one in america is trying to learn another language.” what i say is that few americans are trying to learn other languages. in comparison to the amount of people around the world trying to learn english, this is the truth. in brazil, there is practically an english school on every corner in major cities and even smaller towns have many english schools. parents often enroll their children in english courses as an extracurricular activity (As school goes from 7 am to 12/1 pm here). so when you do the math and consider that a ton of the language schools in the states are to learn english whereas in other countries, language schools also focus on english, we are not working equally as hard to become polyglots.

re: jess (Comment no. 19):
when i refer to my being “different,” i don’t mean different in america, i am referring to being different from what my students expect. the image of america we export is very specific, and it doesn’t include very many people who look like me (Save the hip hop/rap videos they get, further ghetto-izing the black population, even abroad). you have to remember that the majority of american culture when televised and filmed is whitewashed. that is what they see. and in my own personal experience, almost all of my actions/clothing etc shock my students because it’s “not like in the movies” (their words). i have had to have countless conversations with my students, host family, people i meet to debunk stereotypes about americans. i feel like i identify my closely with new york than i do the rest of the states, thus confusing the living daylights out of the people whom i teach lol.

and i fully recognize the mutable nature of culture. i’m not stupid lol. i have studied that process for the entirety of my adulthood. however, there is a difference between cultures being equally shared vs. culture being forced upon another vs. appropriation. those are all separate processes that racialicious has explored to a pretty full extent. and i recognize that the assumptions some brazilians have about americans due to the presence of american (in this article, i mean america to refer to the united states, as we do not have an english word for united states-ian) culture are just as ridiculous as the impression some americans have of brazilians. it comes from ignorance, but it also comes from lack of access to alternative sides of a culture. i try to expose my students to music, film, and culture in the states that goes beyond mtv, disney, and other american networks and films, but i can only do so much.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 10:15 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:

one more thing…i am not ashamed of my job nor do i regret taking on this type of position. i love what i do, but just like people in any other field, sometimes you wonder if what you are doing is right or in some way conflicting with your personal morals/beliefs/view of the world, etc.

and re: the photo choice…i picked this photo because i think this is the general image people have of english teachers from the west who move to foreign countries: white as can be. it also happens to be the image some of my students and teaching peers have of americans (again, beyond people who perform r&b, rap, hip hop). the picture itself was from a google search for teaching english abroad…

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 10:19 pm ¶
theboxman wrote:

A question for Wendi:

How do gender dynamics play out in the ESL scene in Brazil? Are more ESL teachers male or female, and what impact might this have?

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 10:41 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

Jessica: As someone who has been studying Japanese for over a year and hopes to take the JLPT later this year I think there’s more people out there like us. ~_^. We live in a more global community now. I think the day is fast approaching when being bilingual will be a requirement in a lot of areas, and people in the U.S. who speak only English will be at a definite disadvantage…and they will have no one but themselves to blame.

There are few popular sites to help one learn Chinese in an easy, succint manner

I’ve had a lot of success using byki software to supplement my classes and other materials, and it’s by far the best system I’ve used. You can download the “express” version of Mandarin at the byki.com site to see if it works for you before buying the deluxe version.

Since most HS in the states require at least 2 years of foreign language study as a graduation requirement, I don’t think it’s an issue of people not trying to learn another language, I think it’s more about what’s being made available at the HS level and beyond and what students are being “steered” to what languages.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 10:43 pm ¶
Ray wrote:

Thanks for the post.

I can totally relate with your feelings about representing, or not, the American culture. When I lived there, it was hard to establish a different identity from “o Americano.” But I didn’t get it because I didn’t listen to rock music, didn’t play american football, football, or basketball. But, you’ve been there for a while. After six months I had friends that really knew me, with whom I was Ray and not o americano.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 11:33 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

Rob, while I agree that learning languages is great for everyone I think we need to examine out motivations for doing so. There is a big difference between learning a language for the sake of learning it and learning it because you’re forced to assimilate or you need to appeal to say, English-speaking tourists, to survive.

I also think there’s a big difference between the adventure stories of Brazilian tourists to the US and those of American tourists in Brazil because of the differential power dynamic. English teachers (especially white ones) are privileged for colonialist reasons in ways that simply don’t compare. An example? I know several white Canadians who went to teach in S Korea and actually NAMED their students. How much more colonial can you get? Those students were renamed with Anglo names that they will now be encouraged to carry for the rest of their careers. Naming is such an important part of colonial mastery over Other people; those teachers were instructed to reinvent their students in their own image and most of them randomly assigned names according to their favorite television characters. How would any of us feel to see our own children, given names that we took great care in choosing, retitled after some character from Sex and the City?

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 1:01 am ¶
Shauna wrote:

Is teaching someone who is privileged and has funds to pay you more (or at all) for your time a bad thing? After all you are contributing to a system where the more privileged gain access to extra help that will give them advantage over poorer students in school and in the job market.

On the other hand, it’s hard to conceive of knowledge as sinister. Removed from the complexities of teaching ESL abroad to rich students, what about tutoring rich kids in the US to do better on standardized tests or have extra help for school? While it’s probably true that if you don’t do it, someone else will, that has been used to justify participating in many evil systems.

Tutor rich kids, even being given the opportunity to live and travel abroad, or get little to no pay to teach less privileged kids at a public school or non-profit? Ah the moral struggles of the educated middle class: money or morals; it’s too easy to find a moral justification for money.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 4:24 am ¶
Carlos Caju wrote:

Hi!
I am a Brazilian journalist , a social scientist and some times an English teacher for Brazilians. I have developed a revolutionary English crash course to teach English in a short time, where Brazilian culture, people’s flexibility, creativity and sense of humor are very important elements used in my method. I understand what you say and perhaps what you feel. I have traveled around the U.S. long time ago, and I reside in Europe for a considerable number of years. However, I am often in Brazil, as much as I am often in classrooms either as a teacher or as student, so that I do not lose the reference as a Brazilian in Brazil or as a student. Brazil is a world in itself due to its broad diversity and multiplicity of all kinds. I believe there are different Brazils in Brazil and we are all exposed to the massive american culture and values specially due to the media industry. It is a pity and it is a fact. I believe teaching English, Chinese, French or any other second language to Brazilians is no harm and is actually something good. The challenge in doing that, as I see, is to find teachers committed to not only teach the language itself, but bring to the students the awareness of the perception management process they may be in. Language is a powerful political instrument and teachers should help students to see that it is also a potential dangerous mechanism used to conquer minds. As I have heard from some one in the U.S. long time ago: “we first go out to conquer people’s hearts and be able save their souls, then others continue the struggle to conquer their minds “.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 5:25 am ¶
Shauna wrote:

@jvansteppes: It’s common to take a Spanish name for your Spanish class or a French name for your French class. It’s used in class only, and gives you familiarity with pronunciations of common names.

While due to the power that English-speakers have, these names may continue to be used if they choose to work in a primarily English speaking environment, the names are still CHOSEN by the children and when they’re older they will be able to choose whether to continue to use it. Their choice may be constrained by the economic privileges of one choice, but it is still a far cry from traditional colonialism.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 5:40 am ¶
Jess wrote:

@altasien– yeah, I know there was a period of imperial expansion in Japan, but the interesting thing to me was that attempts to force the Japanese language were pretty unsuccessful as these things go. In fact, I would rate Japanese colonization of Asia as some of the least successful of any of the colonial powers, and not just because they weren’t at it as long.

The Americans managed to make English the lingua franca of the Philippines in a period just as short (1903-1940 or so). My wife (a Filipina) tells me it had to do with strategy. The Japanese just tried to force everyone to do business in Japanese and beat people into submission. The Americans built schools and sent an army of teachers. (She also describes the Japanese as the Germans of Asia, which says a lot right there).

This isn’t to downplay the violence of the American colonial period, by the way. But the American strategies were a hell of a lot more effective.

Anyhow, the difference in strategies also reflects a cultural difference as well, but that’s sort of a whole other discussion. The short version is that Japanese culture — even though it has elements of every other culture in the Pacific, I would guess — doesn’t seem to be as – I dunno, open? — to the idea that any other people are people. There’s a tribal quality that I can’t quite put m finger on. Like other people are some kind of aliens or something.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 8:48 am ¶
RK wrote:

Wow, thanks for this powerful commentary. I’ve experienced very similar feelings as a South Asian American who goes back to India to visit my extensive family on a regular basis, most recently to explore starting a sustainable computer literacy scheme in the very poor village where my father grew up. I’m so uncomfortable with the bringing-something-worthwhile-from-America narrative, but I’m equally uncomfortable with not offering any assistance, since I clearly have the ability to do so.

I don’t know what the middle ground is. The best I’ve been able to do is to make sure that I listen to what the community needs above all, instead of pushing my own agenda on them. It’s still awkward when they ask me what America is like, or what my life is like in America – just like you, I’m uncomfortable being seen as an ambassador from America because of the power dynamics and colonial narrative.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 9:57 am ¶
theboxman wrote:

Jess:

Actually, I’d suggest that your representation of Japan as a fundamentally “closed” society is a projection of Western cultural stereotypes of Asia in general and Japan in particular as irrevocably foreign. There is no essential closedness to Japan, at least not any more so than any other nation. I wouldn’t be surprised if more Japanese people travel internationally than Americans, for instance, who are famous for the low rate of passport possession.

Your description of Japanese colonial practice is also very simplistic, and is not supported by the historical record. In fact, Japan deployed at different times and in different places all manner of assimilative strategies — promoting intermarriages, official multiracial/multicultural policy, etc., along with the more direct violent impositions. Typically this is narrated as a passage from the policy of “douka” (assimilation) to “kouminka” (imperialization), although this is also contested by different historians. The Philippines is not a good contrast example here as it was only occupied by Japan for a period of three years, during an ongoing war and with the presence of an active armed resistance. What you want to look at is Korea and Taiwan, wherein Japanese language education did in fact have an impact. In that case, the big difference is that Japan was defeated at the end of WWII with the consequence that it was stripped of its colonial possessions, whereas the Philippines remained essentially a neocolonial client state of the United States into the postwar, retaining the same educational institutions and practices, regardless of formal independence.

This is not say that the Japanese empire was benevolent in any way. Hardly. It was as brutal and violent as any colonial project. Only that its practices were more complex, and involved a fair bit of ambiguity, contradiction, and negotiation.

Furthermore, into the present, perhaps you aren’t aware of this, but while Japan may not send armies of Japanese teachers to all corners of the world, they do offer significant government programs with full tuition and stipend support to students from other countries (typically numbering in the severa hundreds, maybe thousands each year) to come to Japan, do a year-long intensive language course enough to prepare them to enter universities in Japan. This is, I’d argue, quite a successful program (at least more so than the ESL schools in Japan, which are largely complete jokes), producing second language speakers of Japanese that are disproportionate to the cultural capital that accrues to speaking Japanese (considering that Japan is the only place where it is used). I’m not saying this is necessarily a good thing. It’s just as fraught with issues of power and economics. But to characterize Japanese linguistic expansion as thoroughly unsuccessful strikes me as misinformed.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 10:15 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

@Jess: you’re using a straw man in #48. Pure static cultures don’t exist, and culture isn’t synonymous with language. That’s absolutely right. But it doesn’t alter the fact that the flow of culture and language does not take place on a level playing field.

The Mexican film industry is a good example. It used to turn out huge numbers of movies with mass appeal up through the 50s, then began dying in the 1950s until the economic crisis of 1981 killed it off. While many individual Mexicans wanted support for a national film industry, local media conglomerates allied with U.S. media conglomerates didn’t include cultural considerations in their profit margins. If you were a Mexican who wanted to watch a Mexican movie, you were out of luck. If you were a Mexican director who wanted to make a Mexican movie that had both artistic quality and mass appeal, no one would give you money. People like Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro had to emigrate to make their movies. They didn’t necessarily want to spend most of their careers making English-language movies, but they made the best of a bad situation. Mexican cinema is in a resurgent stage today, but if you go to a typical movie theater almost every single movie will be a Hollywood import.

Also, you’re getting pretty close to assigning a pure static culture to Japan. Like I said, Japan’s imperial stage was young, short, concentrated, truncated and violent. The American imperialism stage was old, long, diverse, and frequently violent. Filipinos experienced American imperialism as being more friendly than the Japanese flavor, but Native Americans in the U.S. during the same timeframe experienced that American cultural imperialism in a much harsher form.

Any differences of Japanese imperialism can be chalked down to geography (being an island nation) and patterns of historical circumstance, not anything uniquely “tribal” about their mindset.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 10:35 am ¶
CVT wrote:

It’s funny, because when I worked and lived in Tanzania for a year and a half – one thing became really clear: missionary work is definitely NOT just the work of missionaries.

It’s so common for “liberal” folk to bash missionaries, and then to go abroad to “help people” by – more or less – telling them how to do things and what’s important. That’s what NGOs are for. And, usually, they are “staffed” (mostly volunteers) by people with absolutely NO experience whatsoever – a bunch of 20-somethings with little life experience in their OWN country telling a bunch of grown-ass adults in ANOTHER country how to “improve” their situation. And why are they so sure they have it right? Because they’ve been “educated” – unlike the heathens they are converting.

Boil it down however you like – and that is EXACTLY what NGO work is. Does that mean good things never come from it? Not necessarily – but a lot less than they think.

Much as missionary work can often offer some pluses (in spite of the perceived negatives). In fact, the most open-minded ex-pats I met in Tanzania were the missionary couple living in the village I was working in. They were much more interested in truly understanding the people they worked with than the “liberal” volunteers that I interacted with.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 10:48 am ¶
wendi muse wrote:

shauna-you raise an excellent point about standardized test prep in the states. though re: wealth in english teaching, um there is very little. in teaching here in brazil, i make what comes out to about 500 dollars a month (if you include my room & board), which at the end of the day, is not exactly paying for college loans. i didnt take this job for the money and i dont think most people do. in my case, as i mentioned before, it was more about the experience of traveling/knowing more about brazilian culture beyond books.

also, to jess above…i forgot to mention this in a previous comment, but when you said the following, i was a bit…idk taken back a bit. it seems that you are projecting a bit more onto me than i convey in the piece in terms of both my personality and my motivation for moving to brazil:

“I sometimes think that, as an American who came to New York, who sees herself as “different” (that is, out of mainstream, cf. the veg diet and tattoos) you went to Brazil expecting that the country was some kind of fly in amber, that there was some “authentic” Brazilian culture to experience and learn. But what’s “authentic” anyway? If you worked as an expat banker would your experience be any less authentic, necessarily? Yeah, there are all sorts of privileged jobs like that where you can hide away among American expats. But you have to choose to do that. And you’re not so different from other Americans, when you think about it. That’s no bad thing. You didn’t choose to be born in the US. Don’t sweat it. ”

i dont ever say that i am looking for “authenticity,” but i was looking for something beyond a stereotype, with which we are often presented in film and other media re: brazil. i am not looking for “authentic” in the same way that say, people who take favelas tours (which i wrote about a few years ago here: ,and which i find pretty insulting in and of themselves). i wanted to spend more time here to add further to knowledge of brazil i already possessed.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
CVT wrote:

An addendum to the above:

Whose children actually lived and played with other Tanzania children, completely fluent in Swahili? The missionary couple’s kids.

Which children hardly spoke any Swahili and stayed away from Tanzanian children, hidden away in a “compound”? The NGO staffers.

So, although I’m not a big missionary guy, let’s just call ALL missionary work what it is. Self-righteous is self-righteous, but I’d rather take the more honest form, in most situations.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
theboxman wrote:

@atlasien
“Filipinos experienced American imperialism as being more friendly than the Japanese flavor”

In fact, even this assertion is one that warrants calling into question. The Philippine-American war was just as brutal, just as violent (if not more so) as the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. That there are Filipinos who think the period of American colonial presence was in any way benevolent is a testament to the decades of whitewashing in the teaching of history in the public education system since the beginning of the 20th century.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 12:44 pm ¶
Amy wrote:

Don’t have time to make a long comment, but as someone who just got back from a year and a half in China, I’m following the conversation with interest–and just wanted to say that, Wendi, you probably know this already, but as a “different” sort of American you’re probably doing your students way more good in terms of cultural education than if you had been the blue-eyed blonde they expected.

For my part, I’m light-eyed, light-haired, and white white white, and no matter how many times I demurred or tried to explain otherwise when someone identified me as a “traditional American” (whatever that means!), and talked about diversity, immigration and how real Americans mostly don’t look/act like the ones in the movies, I was often not sure the message was getting through. My Taiwanese-American coworker had a lot more obvious success with that because she was living (and to students from outlying areas, viscerally astonishing) proof that Americans come in all different colors.

Thinking about it, maybe I should have got a big tattoo or some visible piercings just to shake things up a little. Too bad I’m terrified of pain…

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 5:59 pm ¶
akoma wrote:

I was an english teacher in Venezuela. I was in the country for a few of the same reasons as Wendi. I was there mainly to learn about the social movements taking place; teaching english was a way to support myself while I was doing that. I had a completely different experience teaching from most of the people who have posted, though. For one, my students were all adults in jobs like marketing for HBO Latino, employees of the Canadian embassy, pharmacologists, etc. Privileged people who were learning english (as well as mandarin, portuguese, and french) for immediate use in business. My fellow teachers at the places i worked were usually Venezuelan, but also from Guyana, Brazil, Haiti, Nigeria, Australia, Jamaica, etc. Not the sort of sex, drugs, & beaches ex pat community that a lot of you describe. those people definitely exist there; they certainly do. I just didn’t encounter them as an english teacher.

dammit, I can’t finish what i want to say, i have to get back to work! i’ll try to say some more tomorrow, but i agree that the spread of english is a part of US cultural, political, and economic domination.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 7:15 pm ¶
jaye wrote:

Carlos Caju:
“The challenge in doing that, as I see, is to find teachers committed to not only teach the language itself, but bring to the students the awareness of the perception management process they may be in. Language is a powerful political instrument and teachers should help students to see that it is also a potential dangerous mechanism used to conquer minds.”

Jess:
“And know that as these kids learn English, I will bet dollars to donuts that they will be the ones changing American culture in a few decades in ways we can’t predict. Culture is far from static.”

I agree with both these comments. All you can do is offer these kids a different perspective…try your hardest not to perpetuate the colonial model by bringing awareness about it, even talking about your concerns depending on their age. You are up against a tidal wave…but isnt that how it always is? What these kids do with this language is their choice…and while learning English is to a large extent a perpetuation of colonialism, it is also education and a path to employment, further education and opportunities…yes, they may buy right into the American machine, but as Jess said, what they do with it might also surprise us. We don’t have a right to deny them that choice, all we can do is try to give them as much awareness as possible.

Posted 25 Feb 2009 at 3:13 am ¶
little mixed girl wrote:

It wasn’t until I got to university that I realized that “teaching” English abroad was such a big draw for people, and even then I thought it was mostly people going to Asia.

As bad as it sounds, English is currently being used as the lingua franca of millions of people. At this point in time, it’s not likely that it’s going to be replaced with French or even Chinese.

In that sense, English teachers are important. But the average English teacher (from what I’ve seen) is a recent university grad who has no ESL training, knows nothing of linguistics, and is using the chance to “teach” as a way to travel.

Unfortunately, in non-English speaking countries there are limited opportunities for English speakers. Many times translation is left to English speaking locals, and “English speaker” has unfortunately become equated with “English teacher”.

How English is taught in a particular place depends on how the school/government wants to teach it. From what I’ve seen in Japan, the style of teaching is to throw English at the learner with no regards for cultural differences, etc.

I think I’m getting off topic here, but places all over the world need to reevaluate how they are teaching English and what they want their students to come away with. That is something that takes time and effort, and that’s why you get cookie-cutter teaching all over the world.

There are also ways to get abroad that don’t involve English teaching, but you have to have a more advanced grasp of that language to have a chance at those jobs.

Posted 25 Feb 2009 at 9:59 am ¶
wendi muse wrote:

little mixed girl-i totally agree with you on the english speaker = english teacher issue. i, too, have problems with this. i am a bit of a grammar fanatic, so my students are pretty lucky in this area (only that i often disagree with the grammar lessons in the books, which try to teach them spoken english or easier english instead of proper english. this, of course, annoys me to no end), but a lot of the teachers i have met haven’t the foggiest about the english subjunctive or when to use object pronouns vs subjects etc, thus often leaving me shaking my head.

Posted 25 Feb 2009 at 10:01 pm ¶
mari wrote:

one thing I was thinking:

Its easy to dismiss some of the students and other Brazilian colleagues as lacking a sophisticated understanding of culture (particularly ‘American’ culture)..and the way the world works. Maybe we aren’t giving them enough credit.

I don’t think its that hard to really begin to understand that the “American’ images fed by the media as well as previous teachers that seemed to fit the stereotypes are gross generalizations and only represent the ‘dominate’ culture. I’m sure for many Brazilians kids they are used to being marginalized by the media..or seeing things on TV that don’t fit their reality.

Not saying that it doesnt happen, but sometimes I catch myself when I think I have to ‘preach it’ to my students (I am English teacher) over and over that I’m ‘different’ than the dominate American culture. Perhaps I don’t need to say anything. They figure that out for themselves. And when they say things about me speaking their language..not looking like the “normal American (ie white blond blue eyes) I need only see that not as their suprise…but gradual recognition as they learn (as they are sophisticated kids) that stereotypes are just that..stereotypes.

Its not about them getting an American cultural education from me. but my students understanding and broadening their own thinking about how the way the world works THE SAME all over the world as far as stereotypes are concerned.

Posted 26 Feb 2009 at 6:18 am ¶
Katie wrote:

I know the sign language conversation happened way up at the top of the thread, but I just wanted to add…

Equating British Sign Language and American Sign Language is like equating Spanish and English. Or any language and any other language. They developed in entirely different settings based on the needs and culture of the people using the language (ie, deaf people) and not based on their neighbors (ie, hearing people speaking English). I can’t speak to the history of BSL, but ASL was developed after England and the U.S. were very separate countries. There’s no reason to assume that deaf people on separate continents would develop similar languages – it makes far more sense that they wouldn’t.

What it boils down to is that ASL, or BSL do not equal English, just as English does not equal Korean, French does not equal Zulu, etc. They have different grammatical structures, different cultures, different histories. Overall, like every other language, they have words/signs that translate to something in English, but they aren’t based on spoken-English. There’s actually a very long history of various people trying to force deaf people to use Signed English (which is a direct translation of English grammar, words, etc), but that’s not what is signed today.

Posted 26 Feb 2009 at 1:28 pm ¶
Afro-chan wrote:

#21Kristen wrote…

“Even if I as a teacher took language classes, tried to improve my fluency while there and walked away with a deeper cultural awareness, the fact remained that it wasn’t really a two-way street. After all, Japanese students don’t come to the US to teach in public schools here, at least not in any nationwide programs like JET is in Japan.”

Currently I am a 5th year Assistant Language Teacher on the JET Program. The work I do IS the framework for something like the JET Program in the states. If we don’t build bridges into to other countries how in the world will we be able to entice people into ours? My willingness to learn about others is the catalyst for them to come to our country and teach us. It has to start somewhere. You don’t have to force your culture in order to teach another language. I let my kids know from jump that English/my culture isn’t “better”; rather, it is what it is. They use English to show me their culture. (I’m discouraged from using too much Japanese at school.)

If no one is interested in coming do you really think that is going to help us learn more languages, open up and appreciate others inside and outside our borders? If communication closes up will that help Americans to see the necessity in broadening their horizons?

LittleMixedGirl,
Thank you for making great points. It’s not necessarily the teaching of English that can be damaging, but rather how you teach it. Linguistics is a hobby and Spanish was my major. In fact I was quite disappointed in the lack of training here. I thought JET was a little deceiving about “training”. I try to study on my own. I am older than the standard foreign English teacher. This was a career change so I do feel like my commitment is stronger than some of the recent, “until I can get a job in my field” grads. Many Japanese people in my area can speak English decently (and I live in the mountains) but don’t understand the emotion/impact behind the words. Likewise I am just now starting to better understand the connection between the Japanese language and the culture (nuances, emotional impact and stuff).

A general comment not directed at anyone in particular. Please just think about it:

US Culture is not just MTV. If I hear that one more time I am going to f****** scream. Our culture is young and defining itself but in no way shape or form is it just MTV. Presenting yourself as the “I’m not like other Americans” American while living abroad is just reinforcing the stereotype that the majority of us are a bunch of Paris Hiltons and G. Bushes. It’s insulting, self-righteous and just plain irresponsible. Yes, I know there are close-minded people who don’t care about anything outside their comfort zone. However there are many people who are under-exposed yet very open-minded and eager to see what’s outside of their comfort zone when given the opportunity. Please note the difference. I get tired of undoing the damage of irresponsible, well meaning compatriots.

Posted 27 Feb 2009 at 9:38 am ¶
wendi muse wrote:

afro-chan, i agree with the tail end of your comment and hope that is not the impression you got from my piece…i.e. that i am self-righteous american reinforcing stereotypes of other americans. i usually open my debunking sentences with things like…not all american do X or some amerians do Y instead of Z like you see in films, etc. i do not consider myself the only person on the planet who is different from the americans they see on tv…but in speaking from experience, especially in terms of the frequency with which people ask me questions about the united states, the biggest source of cultural influence starts with television/film/music. that’s what my students always use as a reference point for their questions, as do all the other people i meet who want to talk about the states and/or confirm/debunk the stereotypes of us they may have gained from the media.

so while it may be easy for us to sit back and say ok, our culture is not just mtv, you have to bear in mind that cable television and popular films have a pretty strong influence. i didn’t make it up.

Posted 27 Feb 2009 at 6:44 pm ¶
Kristen wrote:

@Afro-chan

My comment was not so much about any lack of interest among Japanese people in coming to the US but about the lack of demand in US public schools for Japanese instruction. At one level, learning languages is interesting just in and of itself, but the demand for teachers is a different matter and that’s where the imbalance is. I guess my comment wasn’t really clear. I tried to differentiate between the teachers and coordinators who are interested in teaching and well meaning, and the system (if you will), which privileges English over other languages because it’s become a lingua franca.

Some other commenters here have implied that because schools in the US generally require students to take 2 years of a foreign language, we are encouraged to learn foreign languages just as, say, Brazilian students are encouraged to learn English. It’s not quite the same, though. Two years isn’t really long enough to become proficient–most of the people I knew who are proficient took six years of a language before college and then spent a semester or a summer during college abroad. The other difference is that in many countries, the language to learn is English, while here in the US French, Spanish, German and Latin are all commonly offered. There isn’t one that is considered a ticket to a better life (though growing up I heard that Latin is useful if you want to go into medicine, e.g.).

Posted 28 Feb 2009 at 2:33 am ¶
Spinster wrote:

As a woman of color who is applying for teaching jobs abroad, thank you for posting this. It gives me more to reflect upon as I (possibly) take this journey.

Posted 28 Feb 2009 at 6:44 pm ¶
Afro-chan wrote:

Wendi muse

Thanks for responding. Oops–that comment wasn’t directed at you, it’s just kind of a recurrent theme that I see in a lot of posts on Racialicous when people talk about America (American=crappy). I actually identified quite a bit with what you wrote. I think the best part about teaching abroad is I am a real live sample of American culture. I agree that the questions I get can be frustrating. Once I got a little feel for the culture in Japan I started clipping US articles written about Japan. Also, I brought World History textbooks from the states to Japan. The kids (teachers) and I sat through and talked about the articles. We discussed the perspectives that history is written from. It’s a great catalyst for truly open discussions. People began to realize that the information we get in our countries through “respectable” news media sometimes paints unclear images of other cultures even if its well intentioned. That is a good way to address the stereotypes on both sides.

**I am singing Public Enemy’s “Burn Hollywood Burn” right now.

Kristen

Thanks for responding. I see exactly what you’re saying. When I talk to people in the US they always say, “I wish I could learn about other cultures firsthand.” I am hoping that I can contribute to generating interest in America about other cultures. Kids in the US seem so fascinated learning about my travels. They express jealousy that no one from abroad can come to their school. My fingers are crossed. I think every little bit counts, right? Everything I do is very small scale (sister cities, pen pals, homestays, teacher swapping) but hopefully in time the scales of exchange will truly be balanced.

About education in Japan-There has been a lot of talk about offering a language choice in schools. It is good in theory but people DO need to stick with one language for a long period of time. The standard US 2 years of a foreign language is laughable. One thing I have been wrestling with is why English is the de-facto language in Japan rather than Chinese or Portuguese? Here, I feel like few want to learn those language because of social prejudices against said groups.

Sorry ladies if I sounded snarky or angry. I was neither. I didn’t mean to sound like I was attacking. I’ll do better next time.

Sorry my post is all over the place. The best part about learning about other cultures/languages is that it humanizes us. If we can identify with someone across the ocean then maybe we can be more responsible when making decisions that can affect them. Racialicious keep up the good work.

Posted 01 Mar 2009 at 5:30 am ¶
wendi muse wrote:

lol afro-chan, no harm done
i saw your disclaimer about your comment not being directed at anyone in particular, but i felt like it was directed to me, hence my reply. nevertheless, thanks for the clarification and for commenting. your feedback is important to us

Posted 02 Mar 2009 at 3:05 pm ¶
Naree wrote:

Well written article Wendi!

Your current experiences in Brazil definitely hit on some of the similar thoughts and emotions I felt while in China.

You are a rare breed, and I truly believe your students are truly lucky (even if they don’t realize it) to have someone like you as a teacher. Being there to teach and be of service to these students, instead of doing missionary work in the name of an organized religion, is definitely something to admire. You teach and serve because you are a good person with a good heart, not because there is some hidden agenda or motive. Students will definitely read your true intentions, and yours are pure.

I look forward to reading more of your articles my fellow Memphian and citizen of the world!

Posted 13 Mar 2009 at 1:47 am ¶
Mark wrote:

It’s true that English is rapidly becoming the default global language, and it’s true that it is no more important than any other language. However, the dominance of English isn’t exactly surprising.

I work in Biotech – I read a lot of scientific journals every week. And those journals are written primarily in English – because the initial discoveries were made in English speaking countries. Most of the terms in Molecular Biology were in English to begin with, and rather than mess about with complicated translations, many overseas scientists just adopted the english words.

And as with most things in science, tradition often sets the rules – the first articles and journals were in english, so the rest were in english. And that’s the way it continued for a long, long time.

Now, journals in other languages are being published – for example, there are very good cancer journals published in Japanese and Chinese.

Now, it’s true that there is a question: “Why should they be forced to learn english?” and I don’t really have a good answer to that, other than most of the original literature and journal publications are in English.

Is it a good thing that most of the scientific literature on Molecular Biology is in English? Well…. it makes things easier for the English speakers. But it can also serve as a serious barrier to people who don’t speak English, and that’s no good.

So what is to be done? Well, better translators for starters. Already, there are services which translate scientific articles from English to Japanese or German or Chinese, but they are way too expensive.

The only hope rests with Computers – I hear that a universal and accurate translator will become a reality by the mid 2020’s or so. That should solve the problem!

Posted 22 Mar 2009 at 8:57 am ¶

The Brazil Files: Conflict of Interest

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