THEME: Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice

As a white person doing Chinese I kind of have a bit of an obligation to stop out stereotypes that my kids might have about China, Chinese culture and so that when they learn Chinese, they don't know they're not saying, oh he's speaking Chinese Ching-Chong like that. That's really culturally insensitive. As my job, I was sort of, make sure that people don't do that. (… …) I would also feel that as a teacher of Chinese, you know I'm teaching about Chinese culture and teaching about Chinese history. (… …) But at the same time, wanting to present facts to my students and having them understand China, right. (… …) I can't be saying you know, this is China, it's all bad. It's, you know, or this is China, everything is amazing, their life is fantastic, 和谐社会you know, all that stuff. (… …) so I feel I feel it is important to address stereotypes that they have whether they are they express them or they don't exist. (… …) So, really trying to take it from this fancy oriental place or, the notion of orientalism, just grounding and saying no, they're just people like we are, just do things differently, that's all. (… …) I won't say that I spent my entire class periods talking about controversial topics and cultures with sensitive topics. I don't necessarily avoid them, either. (… …) And even if that means something like you know, the experiences of black people in China Vs white people, the big difference right and how many Chinese people never see a black person before. It’s another conversation but it's important to address these things, because I certainly never learned what I was learning Chinese. (Lance, Interview)

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