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I think for Gale the irony is that, as she says (and as you quoted above), although she put so much energy into “becoming an American that [she] lost touch with [her] Chinese roots” (104), when other people look at her, it’s not as a ‘complete’ American:

You want to be an American? Then you have to accept what comes with being an American with a prefix, a Chinese-American, who is often seen in this country has having slanted, wandering eyes, walking with a shuffle, slurping soup nosily, living in a house with walls covered in grease from stir-frying, running a laundry or a restaurant, and speaking English with ugly ching-chong sounds. (109)

I may be reading too much into this, but it makes me think of a flip side to Royster’s “when the first voice you hear is not your own”–it’s when you are expected (required? assumed?) to speak for (as a representative of) a particular group because of your ethnic/cultural background(s).

There’s an interesting, but to me rather complicated, point that Krista Ratcliffe makes in Rhetorical Listening about listening metonymically, where we take others as being associated with, but not necessarily representative of, their ethnic or cultural group(s). I haven’t quite worked out in my head what that actually means in practice, but if we place that idea next to Gale’s and Royster’s essays, maybe there’s some way that the discipline can discuss ethnicity and rhetoric in a way that doesn’t get wrapped up in stereotypes or labelling.

拋磚引玉 (pao zhuan yin yu–I’m just throwing a brick into the conversation to attract jade.)

But it’s interesting to think about what our world would be like if it did happen. How would this change the ways in which we acquire literacy? Would computers become the most influential sponsors of literacy in a child’s life? Gasp. Would academics all drop dead from heart attacks?

Did you read Tevis’ Mockingbird yet?

You provide a thoughtful read of Gale’s essay. I was interested in the struggle in Gale’s essay, too. The struggle to identify and disidentify with a community, a people, and a political system that silenced so many, including Gale.

It’s interesting to compare/contrast Gale’s essay with Royster’s. Both call for honesty and for truth. Royster’s essay, though, is firmly situated in the African American community, and her essay, since it was the Chair’s address, has a quality of directly speaking to the reader/listener. There are many moments when I feel Royster is speaking dead-on to us: telling difficult truths about how her voice–and those of African Americans– have been misrecognized, misheard, silenced, run over the top of. I hear “rhetorical listening” all over the place, and I hear her comments about the “home training”–not walking all over somebody’s house and community as if it is one’s own. This is a question for us to consider in our discussion of ethnic rhetorics. Where is our home in relation to ethnic rhetorics? How do we enter into and engage the discourses and communities of our colleagues, our students, our neighbors? How do we heed Royster’s advice to “talk across boundaries WITH others instead of FOR, about, and around them? ” (620).

Royster’s essay gets me every time, brings me up, turns me around.

I was particularly interested in what you said about not being noticed for your reading ability/language gifts, perhaps because you were quiet? I wonder, too, about the ways that your fellow students got placed in the advanced groups or honor’s courses. Grades? Perceived ability? Favoritism? Influence of another teacher or even a parent? The Mrs. Blackwells of the world?

I remember in the second grade the teacher asked us to name our reading groups. Since we were in the advanced reading group, my fellow second grade reading group members decided to call ourselves “The Roadrunners” because we were fast readers. The “lower” group referred to themselves as “The Slowpokes,” likening themselves to turtles. I remember at the time it all seemed logical and quite funny (I remember the “Slowpokes” giggling and laughing when they announced their name), but I cringe now that the labeling and tracking was so blatant, so self-consciously created, and that the students even bought into it so that we named ourselves accordingly….

Good stuff here, Terri!