An essay written by my sister in law Re: Desparate Housewives Filipino insult

[Fuzz]

I just got this in my email. She submitted it for publication. She's been published before, and after you read this, you'll see why.



My father, a prolific storyteller, likes to spin a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of the English language:

It’s the sixties, and he’s a young intern at a small public hospital on the Jersey shore. He has only been in the United States for six months or so. After years of college and medical school, medical internship and residency in the Philippines and another half a year of surgical residency in the States, he’s feeling very secure in his chosen profession. When he tells this story, my mind paints his images in sepia tones. He is thin with high cheekbones, his thick, black hair is held in place with pomade and he walks into a patient’s room with a cocky gait, cloaked in a white lab coat.

A man is lying in bed, recuperating from surgery, tired, stressed and very quiet.

“How are you feeling today, sir?” my father asks.

“O.K., but I’ve got a charley horse,” the patient says.

“Oh, that’s nice,” my father responds. “Do you get to race him?”

When my father is jocular, he plays up the corny immigrant tale. And, for many people who’ve survived my father’s many story tellings, they think that he has just woven himself into an old and tired joke.

But when my father is sad and sentimental, he tells the rest of the story: The patient later asks a nurse to see “a proper white doctor.”

My father is now retired after a successful 30-plus year career as a general surgeon in private practice. Obviously that wasn’t the last racial incident he encountered in his career. He has always been the type of person to respond to that type of situation in one of three ways: rage, laughter or rage and laughter. But that one incident early in his career resonated. It didn’t stop him from being a good doctor; it probably made him work harder to become a better one.

I was reminded of my father’s tale after watching a recent episode of Desperate Housewives, in which Terri Hatcher’s character receives an unusual diagnosis and angrily demands to check her doctors’ diplomas to make sure “they are not from some med school in the Philippines.”

It is a slight that not only disparages the achievements of foreign born medical professionals, but also American-born physicians who were trained in foreign schools.

In a single sentence, a television show belittles the contributions of thousands of health care professionals. It is estimated that there are 20,000 Filipino-American physicians practicing in the United States. They have gone to school, trained in residency programs, and passed rigorous local and national board exams. They work long hours, make life-and-death decisions, and serve the sick and needy, in many instances, in under-served urban and rural areas.

Unlike the recent controversies of Bill O’Reilly’s review of a Harlem restaurant and Don Imus’s assessment of the Rutgers women’s basketball team – both insulting and hurtful episodes – the scene from Desperate Housewives was not an extemporaneous remark by an individual. It was a carefully crafted and edited work. It was written by series creator, Marc Cherry, and read by other writers, directors, producers, television executives and actors. They are co-conspirators in disseminating an ugly message.

Some people will look at this incident and wonder what all of the fuss is about. It’s just one line in one television show.

I will follow my father’s lead and rage and laugh about it. Because, as my father can attest, English is a tricky language and we all must take care in how we use it.

[Igel]

1. The DH crack is annoying.

Presumably offensive, were I Filipino.

But the misunderstood pun, not offensive. I've cracked puns in foreign languages and my accent makes them simply unacceptable to most speakers--the person I'm talking to has to be familiar enough with me to either know it's unlikely to be a speech error (i.e., I know the language well enough, accent aside) or to know that I'm a bona fide member of the Punster Family. Otherwise, rather than assume the pun is intentional, people routinely assume that it's a speech error: Given my accent, it's probably one of the two, and the bad accent tells them that the 'speech error' option's simply more likely, that I'm not likely to have the kind of linguistic expertise that puns usually are taken to require.

I'd be cautious in assuming that a pun is a speech error. On the other hand, I've seen it done to others and to myself so much that I know the misattribution is common, and stop to wonder if some linguistic oddity was intentional or by accident.

But I understand how a person would be cautious with health care folk (or lawyers, or police ...) and their possible linguistic shortcomings. You simply don't want them making mistakes. I ask my physician every question twice, and try to rephrase everything I say to be sure she understands. (She doesn't, but it's an attitudinal thing, not a linguistic problem.)

[Mugu]

2. The fellow that is my present doctor is of some Asian heritage.

Never asked him where, I don't care. I changed to him after an (I think) Indian guy. The reason for the change is that I couldn't understand the Indian guy and he acted insulted if I asked him to repeat. The Asian doctor at least tries to be clear and doesn't act annoyed if I ask him to repeat or reword.

When I asked the clinic for a different doctor I didn't ask for a white doctor, but for a doctor that spoke English as a first language. I got the impression that they thought that I was asking for a white doctor which was not the case.

It's not too much to ask that the person that I count on for life saving advice be able to speak the local language clearly enough to be understood.

Regards, Mugu

Now that I reread your post I see that my response doesn't address the issue you raised. Never mind.

[knitter4democracy]

3. This kind of thing really bothers me.

Hubby went to med school with people from all over the world. In residency, there were doctors from Russian, Pakistan, India, and I've forgotten where-all else. They were really good doctors, and he loved working with them.

He's never had trouble getting a job. Why? He's a white male, born and educated in the States. He's automatically privileged. I've had hospital recruiters flat-our admit it to me. I've had people ask me if my hubby's American and say they'll go to him, then, when the doctor they're seeing now is just as qualified or more so but from another country originally or has a slight accent or brown skin. Hubby feels odd about it sometimes and always defends a good doctor, even to a patient's face if need be, but that racism is definitely there.

[Fuzz]

4. Bump