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Next Gen Literacies

Securing the borders of English and Whiteness

By November 8, 2021January 12th, 202291 Comments5 min read9,287 views

Australia as a White nation has deep roots: the aim of this 1914 board game was literally “to get the Coloured Men out and the White men in” (Image credit: National Archives of Australia)

The typical Aussie is widely imagined as a white English speaker

Despite decades of multiculturalism, the typical Australian is widely imagined as a white monolingual speaker of English. Australians who do not look white regularly report that they are made to feel as if they do not belong and those with non-native accents sometimes avoid speaking in public so as to remain inconspicuous.

With almost half of Australians born overseas or having at least one parent born overseas and about a quarter speaking a language other than English at home, the perception of Australia as a nation of white English speakers is completely out of step with demographic realities. Why do so many people continue to hold on to this perception?

The historical roots of Australia as a white English nation

There are historical reasons that can explain how Australia came to be an Anglo nation. One of these is the pernicious fiction of terra nullius that wrote Indigenous people out of the imagined nation.

Another reason is the erasure of the British-Irish conflict that was imported into the penal colony but subsequently glossed over into an imagined homogenous “Anglo-Celtic” settler population. Black convicts, who accounted for 1-2 percent of transportees, were cancelled even more completely.

A third foundation lies in a restrictive immigration policy that was designed to exclude non-British settlers in the first half of the 20th century and which was literally known as the “White Australia” policy.

These historical myths have deep roots, but do they still influence perception today?

The media teach us ways of seeing

Contemporary Australia is patently diverse. So why do we continue to see Australians who are not white and who do not speak English as their first and only language as perpetual outsiders?

Screenshot from “Border Security” showing officers in uniform

Many scholars have suggested that the media are partly to blame because they overrepresent white English speakers and underrepresent everyone else.

This may be true of news, current affairs, and fictional genres but there are some extremely popular genres that do show high levels of diversity. Reality TV is one such genre and none more so than the ever-popular Border Security.

Imagining Australia on Border Security

Since it was first aired in 2004, Border Security has provided Australians with “a fascinating insight into the daily workings of the thousands of officers who dedicate their lives to protecting Australia’s border,” as the show’s website explains.

Over the years, the show has attracted many millions of viewers and you are likely familiar with the format: each episode has immigration, customs, or quarantine officers face off with passengers who are suspected of constituting a security threat.

The basic story arc is always suspicion, investigation of the suspicion, and resolution.

My colleagues Hanna Torsh, Laura Smith-Khan, and I have been collecting these episodes because they provide us with a data source for our research in intercultural communication. They also help us answer the question why we continue to imagine the prototypical Australian as a white monolingual speaker of English.

Good guys look white and speak English

The heroes of Border Security are the officers. They are the official representatives of the Australian state, and their job is to keep Australia safe. Each episode shows them in action. As they are on the lookout for illegal activities and investigate the travelers they suspect of wrongdoing, the audience comes to identify with them. We watch with bated breath as they inspect luggage, interview passengers, and share their reasoning with the camera.

The proportions of people who look white and sound like native speakers of English among officers and passengers on “Border Security”

These heroes are not a representative cross-section of Australian society, though. In research just published in the journal Ethnicities, we found that the overwhelming majority of officers on the show look white (83%) and sound like native speakers of Australian English (90%).

Their uniforms further serve to mold them into a homogeneous group. And there is another aspect that enhances their uniformity: the striking diversity of their antagonists.

Suspects look diverse and sound diverse

In the logic of the show, the officers’ hero identity is predicated on their dodgy antagonists: all those travelers who are trying to sneak into Australia on a tourist visa but are really here to work illegally, who are hiding prohibited foods, or who are smuggling contraband.

These suspects provide a stark contrast to the officers. Not only are they under suspicion – sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly – to constitute a threat to Australia but their visual and aural identities are almost the inverse of the officers. 73% of suspects do not look white and 66% sound like non-native speakers of English.

In other words, white English speakers are overrepresented among the show’s heroes and underrepresented among the show’s antagonists.

Shifty characters

The patterns we found in our research go some way to explaining why we continue to imagine Australians as white English speakers. But these patterns are not only about quantitative representation.

Purely on numbers, Border Security shows an incredible diversity of people. More importantly, the show creates a pattern of moral judgement.

As the audience comes to understand Australian identity and threats to national security through the show’s stories, they come to see white English speakers as moral. Australia’s racial and linguistic others, by contrast, seem, at best, forever suspect and, at worst, guilty as charged.

Reference

Piller, I., Torsh, H., & Smith-Khan, L. (2021). Securing the borders of English and Whiteness. Ethnicities. doi:10.1177/14687968211052610. [available open access]

If you are unfamiliar with the show, check out an episode on YouTube, e.g.:

Ingrid Piller

Author Ingrid Piller

Dr Ingrid Piller, FAHA, is Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research expertise is in bilingual education, intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in the context of migration and globalization.

More posts by Ingrid Piller

Join the discussion 91 Comments

  • Hasan says:

    Thank you for sharing another great article professor. This topic always fascinates me also. When I hear the term ‘Australian’ every time a white English-speaking figure pops into my mind. It all comes down to how a country is represented through media. I learned the term ‘Aussie’ through sports, Cricket to be specific. Even in sports, there is a dominance of white English-speaking people. After WW2 only 10 people of color played in the Australian cricket team according to ICC (International Cricket Council). “The White Australia policy (which banned the entry of non-white immigrants) was removed during the 1970 but still very few people of color represented Australia at the international level. The same goes for football (Soccer) also. The white English-speaking man has been the symbol of Australia. However, this is now changing. This year three African- Australian players are representing Australia in the FIFA world cup. However, although they grew up in Australia, they knew people did not see them as fully Australian (white English speakers). In a recent interview with they shared their experience growing up in Australia. This shows how people in Australia also have a stereotypical idea of being an Aussie.

    • Thank you, Hasan! One way these stereotypical representations are kept alive is through the erasure of diverse histories. For example, and as you mention cricket: few people know that the first Australian cricket team to ever tour internationally, in 1868, was entirely made up of Aboriginal players … https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/aboriginal-cricket-team

      • Laura says:

        Wow! I had no idea about this, and it just goes to show how sharing history is a selective process, that involves all types of choices about what is shown, via what platforms, to whom and in what ways.
        It also reminds me of another part of history I had no idea about until recently: this great story about two Chinese Aussie Rules teams competing against each other in Ballarat, around the same period – late 1800s. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/25/forgotten-story-chinese-goldfields-aussie-rules
        From the article: “Did the Chinese Australian Rules football tradition survive into the 21st century? Jamie Pi, an Australian Rules fanatic born in Xinjiang province, believes so. “It’s booming,” he said, and yet he had only heard rumours about the Ballarat Goldfields League history. “Why didn’t people tell us about this?” he asked.”

  • Connie says:

    Thanks for sharing your article.
    I started to think about how I felt about Australia before I came. White, British, Western, that sort of label are my impressions of Australia. This is a kind of stereotype, but one of the reasons is the media.
    After reading your article I suddenly had a small idea——make statistics. Although the data that I choose is too small to be used as a reference, I think I can understand a little why I have the impression of Australians as white native English speakers.

    Since I’m from China, I tried to enter the keyword “Australia” on a video site commonly used by the Chinese.
    The result I got is that among the 36 videos on the first page (all comprehensive rankings), there are 17 videos with people, of which 11 videos are related to white English speakers, and only two videos are related to aboriginal people. The rest 4 are Chinese (Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Australian residence introduction). While the rest of the videos are landscape, climate, and animal related.

    And I also thought of an interesting thing, some Chinese English learners attach great importance to accents. British pronunciation and American pronunciation are their preference. Many teaching videos of spoken English also like to choose white speakers as a reference. (For example, when the Queen of England passed away some time ago, her speech has surged, and many English learners use her accent as a learning reference)

    By the way, I thought if I could ask an unrelated question, something that happened to me while I was in Australia(probably about discrimination), I’m a little curious about that. I’ll leave you a comment below if I can, or I can email you.

  • koki says:

    Thanks for sharing this interesting article, i totally agree that the typical Aussie is imagined as a white English speakers, however, Australian are not only from white skin, Australian are from different background and cultures and this is what i discovered after moving to Australia. Unfortunately racism still exist in Australia, as according to this article ”Australian who do not look white feel they don’t belong to this country” and this is very disappointing especially that everything is supporting the white Australia policy until nowadays. The media is over presenting the white english speakers and this is not fair for others. Therefore, Australian should reconsider their actions and eliminate racism by giving chance to everyone as we living in a multicultural country.

  • 烏 (からす) says:

    Australians in cinema and pop culture are overwhelmingly white. If you were to ask most Americans to name the first Australian to come to mind, I imagine the list would include such familiar names as Steve Irwin, Chris Hemsworth, and Hugh Jackman. However, is an American’s perception really indicative of a greater trend?

    Out of curiosity, I searched imdb for the list of top Australian actors, ranked by “worldwide impact” (weighted toward film credits). The results were rather telling: to find the first non-white-passing actor, I had to scroll down to #70: Aaron Pedersen, an Aboriginal Australian from Alice Springs. Surely there is nothing about whiteness that correlates with acting ability, but what is clear is that there is a strong correlation with opportunity: non-white actors simply are not given the roles that white actors are.

    Of course, Hollywood and American media dominates the global entertainment industry, so some fault must lie with them, and of course, many Australian actors are cast to play American characters with American accents. Regardless of this, however, one would still expect–in an equitable world–to see Aussies of all stripes gracing the silver screen.

    Source: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls002018429/

  • Clara says:

    Such an interesting article; thank you for sharing it with us. I always bear in mind that native speakers are whit-looking people and they can speak English fluently and exactly. It was not until I studied at the university that I realised the truth. At that time, I worked as a teaching assistant in an English center and had opportunities to interact with English speakers from various countries. They do not have only white skin and are very different from my perception.

    People acquire attitudes towards languages that are a reflection of their beliefs about the people who speak the languages as well as the settings and purposes that go along with them. One of my favourite television shows, “Friends,” had a significant influence on how I learnt English. Even though it has been broadcast on TV for close to 30 years, this American television series movie continues to affect fashion, hairstyles, and even some slang words. I learned several words while watching the show that I now use when I speak to foreigners in real life. It is also fantastic when I can comprehend slangs and natural expressions that native people use.

  • Tushar says:

    Language and culture have always been expressed in social media platforms either consciously or unconsciously. But the fact is that, it doesn’t matter what the intention of the content creator was, the audience will always look at the media content through their subjective filtered perceptions. For example, when a black person would watch a show that includes both black and white people, it is pretty obvious that he would relate himself with the black guy in the show. That’s why media holds a lot of power in the ways in which it can shape people’s perceptions about themselves and the society around them.
    I have noticed the effective use of language and culture contact in the blockbuster movies like Hangover, Avengers, Rush hour, Independence Day and many more. I believe one of the main reasons these movies were highly loved all over the world was due to the inclusion of many cultures beautifully into the context of the movie. The directors of the movie tried to bring people from different cultures together through creating scenes in the movies which showed acceptance of these people’s cultures, languages, hobbies and perceptions.

    • Thanks, Tushar! There are many great examples of diverse representations, as you mention. At the same time, I often find this kind of “diversity marketing” a bit disingenuous – it only pretends that everyone is equal and so invalidates the lived experience of exclusion, don’t you think?

  • Dass says:

    It is an interesting journal article!
    Honestly, I have not watched “Border Security”.
    According to the article, the idea of Australia as a White and English-speaking nation is maintained in the face of great ethnic, cultural, racial, and linguistic diversity.
    But the proportion of considering English speaker to be only white is not happening in just Australia. It is happening all around the World. Especially in my home country, according to my own experience, after completing my graduation, I was searching Master of Applied Linguistics and TESOL degree in an Indian college or university. It is believed in India that only white people can speak fluent English and teach native English. So, my parents sent me to Australia for this course. Here I am learning English from natives.
    But I am experiencing totally a opposite thing that there are many people from different background cultures who can speak English Language as it is their mother tongue.

  • SunKyung says:

    Anglo-Saxons represent white people, and white Americans and Europeans also originated from this people. They felt superiority than black people and Asians before, but not any more I think. Many black and Asians are working in higher positions in society nowadays. However, they are the 3rd generation of immigrants and their family members probably had difficulty in English speaking and adopting different cultures. Maybe that’s why black people and Asians were shown not welcoming in media. By contrast, border issue frequently happened, and white police officers represented the strength of that country showing their authority. I think that was effective!

    • Hi Sunkyung, important to keep in mind that race is not a biological fact (or even an individual feeling, as you suggest) but a social structure. The article examines how people come to be racialized (white English-speaking officers as heroes; diverse looking and sounding people as villains).

  • Chloe says:

    Thanks for this interesting article, as it says, the media has a great influence on how people think. Although society is now promoting racial equality, the idea of white supremacy still exists to some extent. Even Australia, which is known as a multicultural country, is no exception.

    And I am not sure when society began to differentiate status by accent. This phenomenon is not limited to English-speaking countries. I have lived in Japan for many years, so I will use Japan as an example. In Japan, the accent changes a little bit depending on the place. ( Also known as dialect.) However, when a person opens their mouth to say something other than standard Japanese, some people will say, “Oh, you’re not from Tokyo.” Although this is a superficial and perhaps harmless remark, it can hurt a person. Furthermore, when a foreigner or mixed-race person speaks fluent Japanese, they are complimented as “You speak Japanese better than I do, that’s awesome.” , despite the fact that they were born and raised in Japan. I believe that racial equality will only be achieved when society does not care about accents and skin colour. I hope that day will come sooner.

  • Thao says:

    In Vietnam, there are 3 main dialects spoken , in the north, the central, and the south. However, when looking up words or learning Vietnamese in the media, overwhelmingly the northern dialect is given. I have yet to encounter a southern accent in online dictionary pronunciations. And when I do come across a depiction of a foreigner speaking Vietnamese, he/she is most likely to speak the northern accent as well. If you are not Vietnamese , you would think we sound all the same. This portrayal of the northern dialect in the mainstream could be the agenda of the government to portray the whole country as speaking this way since it was the north that won the war against the south.

  • Quynh says:

    I completely agree with Haein with respect to the perception of English learners and their parents about ‘white English teachers’. In Vietnam, it is widely believed that English will be learned best when teachers are ‘white people’. I have an American friend who came to Vietnam around 10 years ago to teach science in English. Despite owning qualifications and years of relevant experience when in the States, he has always got lower salary offers than other colleagues because of his ‘Asian’ appearance. He always proudly addresses himself as a Korean-American, but also sadly admits that this Asian look does hinder his career growth or even lower his chance of employment. Vietnamese schools and other teaching institutions appear to have a strong bias toward people coming from America and England, while usually neglecting their incompatibility in teaching roles.

    I could say that the situation has turned for the better as Vietnamese have become more open to diversity in English owing to the Internet boom. Having said that, the common idea still persists to a certain level and presents apparent barriers to non-white people’s employability in Vietnam’s education market.

  • Emma says:

    Thank you for the helpful article. After reading it, I also realized that I used to assume that most Australian people are white. Back in Vietnam, I usually watched many famous US TV series like “How I met your mother” or “Friends.” In those series, the director always tries to involve different people of diverse races. However, the main characters are all white people. This made me believe that everyone who speaks English as their first language is white.
    Consequently, when I first learned that Australia is an English-speaking country, I immediately imagined that Australians are white. Until now, when I was here, I finally reckoned that Australia is a diverse country with different races and different appearances people. I believe that media plays a significant role in modifying people’s points of view.

  • BJYX_sengarun says:

    Thank you for such an insightful article Ingrid. I believe that the media should take responsibility for any images or stereotypes that they create.
    When I was a child, I used to watch a movie in which there was an Asian American woman. In the movie, almost every native English tried to use different Asian languages like Japanese or Chinese to talk with her even though she was an American resident who spoke fluent English. This made my younger self think that only Americans or British were native speakers and spoke English fluently. Nowadays, there are a plethora of Youtube videos in which white people teach English and give tips on how to sound like a British speaker. Due to their ubiquity, English learners in Vietnam often opt for these kinds of videos to acquire either a “native accent” or “native English”. This also shows that the media has made it look like only white-looking people “possess” native English. Consequently, Vietnamese parents usually request white English teachers to teach English in their children’s classes because they worry that English teachers from other races may not be adequately qualified. This phenomenon has occurred since I started to learn English and doesn’t seem to stop as the media keeps demonstrating that only white people speak native English.

  • Haein says:

    Thank you for sharing this article. This reminds me of the culture of white English speakers in much of the English-language content in Korea in the 2000s.
     
    When I was young, most of the visual displays, TV programs, or images that were related to English consisted of white English people. Most English teachers, who are from the U.S. or England, were white people in English institutions as well. Moreover, lots of students’ parents still want their children to learn English with white English-speakers, and I also learned English with native English-speaking teachers. For this reason, I thought most people in the U.S. and England were white at that time. 
     
    With the development and widespread use of the media, we can access a variety of information and even travel the world through the media. I realised that there are many different appearances of people who speak English as their mother tongue, such as African and Asian, through the media. Moreover, there are various types of culture as a multicultural country, with people coming from many different backgrounds in the countries that use English as their first language.

    • Thanks, Haein! Would you say the situation in S Korea has changed so much that parents no longer prefer white English teachers? Or that African- and Asian-looking English teachers have an equal chance to succeed in their careers?

      • Haein says:

        To be honest, even though it is easy to access various kinds of media, our stereotypes have not changed that much. There is still discrimination based on the English teacher’s appearance. For example, the wages of English teachers are different between white English teachers and African or Asian-looking teachers. Furthermore, Korean parents still prefer learning English from white English teachers with their children because the parents also learned English with white English teachers. For this reason, it is still difficult to succeed in their careers in Korea. 

  • YJ says:

    Thank you for sharing this interesting article. Racial discrimination is prohibited in Australia. In fact, according to the Conversation Australia National Survey, a total of 77 percent of Australians admitted this in a survey: “There is still a lot of racism in Australia today.” And 56% agreed that “white people have an unfair advantage in Australia”. According to statistics, only 18% of books in Australian nurseries contain “non-white” characters;
    Animal characters also make up about half of the books, but if you look closely at the lifestyles and values implied by these animals, they represent a familiar group: “white middle-class people.”

    The findings come from a study published in the Australian Journal of Educational Research by Helen Joanne Adam, lecturer in linguistic Education and children’s literature at Edith Cowan University. The report analysed a total of 2,413 children’s books on display in four nurseries in Western Australia. Even if the number of books that include characters from a few cultures is “woefully small”, it is not a complete representation of people from that culture and their way of life; On the contrary, most of these books, which seem to have the theme of “respecting cultural diversity,” are actually cementing white people’s stereotypes of other cultures.

  • Rebma says:

    Thank you for the insightful post, Ingrid! I strongly agree that the mass media plays a significant role in depicting language and cultural stereotypes in our society, it is definitely evident in Border Security. Another example would be the dominant power of white culture in Hollywood film industry, where non-white characters are commonly underrepresented. It is shown in the study from USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that in 1300 popular films over the decade, out of 51,159 speaking characters, only 5.9% were Asian or Pacific Islanders (https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/usc-study-asian-representation-film-73334/). Moreover, those characters are usually tokenistic and stereotypical roles. They are commonly portrayed as perpetual foreigner with accent, and often experience death or harassment on-screen. On the other hand, a great portion of white characters are depicted as heroic characters with power, characters from Marvel films are typical examples. Under such influence, the impression of homogeneity of ‘native’ English speakers are further emphasized in the society.

    • Thanks, Rebma! Sometimes this counting can get very gloomy and it’s good to keep in mind that some things are changing. Crazy rich Asians is a diverse Hollywood production that has been quite successful, I believe (although I haven’t seen it myself but did enjoy reading the novels). As consumers we also have a role to play by seeking out diverse content (and simply avoiding the usual Hollywood fare 😉

      • Rebma says:

        Thanks Ingrid! Indeed we do play an important role to push forward the positive changes in Hollywood film industry as consumers! The usual Hollywood fare wouldn’t have been so successfully if not widely accepted by the audience. Like you said, there are definitely high quality Hollywood films that project a more positive image of Asian cultures like Crazy Rich Asians, which contributes to the language and cultural diversity of Hollywood films.

  • Bob says:

    Thanks for this interesting article, Ingrid. It has definitely brought up some questions about how our views can be constructed and cemented by the media. I remember years ago, when I was 6-7, when Disney first came to my country, I and a lot of my friends would spend hours and hours watching shows like “The Suite Life of Zach and Cody”, “Hannah Montana”, “Wizards of Waverly Place”, etc. They were fun and hilarious and the reruns of previous seasons were constant, to the point that I could remember the lines before I knew English. But now, looking back, I am quite sure that those shows have set certain standards and expectations in my country when it comes to how a person should speak English. The characters looked and spoke in a certain way (‘American’ English, to be exact), and so I suppose that unconsciously, a lot of people (including me) associated that with the concept of ‘native’ English.

    This became clearer to me when I was searching for a job last year. I wanted to work in TEFL and so I applied to several English centers in my city. The job requirements for nearly all of those centers included the line “native English speaker”. Of course, I do not doubt the qualifications and experience of the applicants who fit that criterion, as I’ve had great experiences with my former teachers in those centers, but I’ve always wondered how many applicants who had the same experience/qualifications were rejected just because they did not fit the image of a ‘native speaker’.

  • Kat says:

    Thank you for an interesting article. I have seen the show several times. After watching, I concluded that only white people and people with a native accent could become office workers or work in positions of authority. Most people screened were non-white or non-Australian, and white people were rarely checked. I wondered if white individuals have ever had their luggage inspected upon entrance. In reality, however, this is not the case. At the airport, I observed that the office staff were very multi-cultural and that they inspected everyone’s luggage based on necessity, not nationality.

    In addition, there is a common assumption that only white individuals have a native English accent. A few videos of street interviews, primarily with non-whites, whose native-like accents may receive praise. Some individuals were even questioned about their experiences learning English. These questions may be offensive to compliment-receivers who are natives and might generate low self-esteem among non-native speakers with non-native accents. When the goal of language is to communicate, then why should we pay so much attention to how the person speaks.

  • sinem emre says:

    The reality TV show of ‘000’ is a great example of representations of language and culture contact in the media. In this TV show, there are paramedics who are seen helping their patients etc up till the hospital. However, it has come to my attention that they only represent native Australians who are a patient. It feels as though because triple zero is a Australian TV show, they try to portray the lives of Australians who live here. A very common culture contact in this TV show is when then paramedics have drunk/overdosed patients. This I believe tried to highlight that the Aussie tradition and the culture enjoy a beer and are famous for their bars/pubs.
    This article also reminds me of the recent death of Queen Elizabeth and the Australian media perceiving this. For a whole week, till midnights there were live airing of the Queens funeral and the ‘important Australians’ who have visited this site. A majority of the visitors in the Queens funeral were from non-migrant backgrounds. Yet again, this highlights the culture contact the media has proposed (showing that the British Royal Family are only from a White non-migrant background).

    • Thanks, Sinem, for adding these additional examples of the media representing a very narrow vision of what it means to be Australian …

      • Paul Joseph Desailly says:

        Sinem says correctly, or at least implies I feel, that the saturation media coverage of Her Majesty’s funeral was a tad over the top, what? My teenage kids were chuffed however at the public holiday Down Under. Eddie and Amo cheekily inquired about His Majesty’s state of health and age! They then contacted Albo about no school in Australia during Charles’ coronation. I’m sure their grand parents in China will rebuke them face to face for sharing coronational aspirations for Pu Yi’s ‘imperial’ descendants.

  • Chocomilk says:

    Media has a powerful influence on people’s perspectives, and this article is a stark example. I thought back on various TV shows and movies I have watched in the past. I wonder if unconsciously or consciously, I was also making the judgment in my mind that the protagonist is white and the antagonist is someone who is not white. Truly, Australia is a nation comprised of citizens with diverse cultures and backgrounds. In terms of Asian-Americans, there are many multi-generational families living in US, but I must admit, not many of them were portrayed on US TV when I was a youth living there. Considering that the “Border Security” is a factual documentary, it also shows that those who are authorities and enforcing laws and those who are suspects are oftentimes different in race and the audience is prone to make certain judgment after watching this.

    • Thanks, Chocomilk! You are right that law enforcement agencies do not reflect the diversity of our society very well. However, there is actually greater diversity in the border security workforce than is represented on the show, as we explain in the full article:
      Piller, Ingrid, Torsh, Hanna, & Smith-Khan, Laura. (2021). Securing the borders of English and Whiteness. Ethnicities. doi:10.1177/14687968211052610

  • Lily says:

    What a great article, thanks Ingrid for sharing. I used to always watch Border Security years ago. At the beginning I found it interesting how smart and intelligent the officers are. They have good instincts about people who are or maybe smuggling prohibited things into the country. Like everyone I thought they were heroes. Now when I look at it after reading the article I noticed the difference of being heroes and acting like that. Media has became an issue to promote stereotyping. When I was younger I was one of the people who always related good English speaking skills to white people because that what I used to see on the media. When I moved to live in Australia I changed my point of view because I found out that Australia is a multicultural country, it has diversity of cultures and nationalities. I learnt that not every white person is a good English speaker as I have seen on TV and that people from different nationalities or backgrounds can and have good english speaking skills dependingon their living situations. Some might have been born in Australia or actually learnt English in international schools back home etc. So the widespread of media promoting stereotyping of anything can be false and incorrect and human should explore and practice things before making up their decisions and point of views.

    • Thanks, Lily! Agree that we need experience to overcome stereotypes but it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, isn’t it? Stereotypes affect how we approach others and hence the experiences we have …

  • Mandu says:

    What an insight. Thanks for the article. I completely agree that the media should be responsible for the image they create. Not just limited to ethnic minorities, it actually applies to all types of minorities in the world such as gay, the disabled, immigrants, and so forth. I remember watching an interview with an Asian actor in the western film industry, a long time ago. I don’t remember his name but I do remember that he said ” The images that Western people have about Asian actors are either weak or playing martial arts.” When the media repeatedly shows a certain image of a group, especially when the image is not described in the way it wants to be seen, it reinforces prejudice toward the certain group, eliminating its own identity.

    Similarly, in the past, women were portrayed only as housewives or workers who are taking assistant roles in Korea. Now we see many women in powerful positions on television such as female doctors, judges and politicians, which is a significant improvement. And I think it definitely helps other women to see their own potential and create a positive self-image. Back to ethnic diversity, However, there is still much room for improvement. Media visuality matters in that it validates one’s identity and experience when the portrayals reflect the identities of diverse groups rather than perpetuate stereotypes.

  • Hi says:

    Thank you for the interesting story Ingrid!

    When I was a child, I also believed white-looking people were native speakers and only they speak fluent English. However, studying English Linguistics and the chance to immerse in cultural and linguistic diversity in Australia totally changed my perception of native English speakers.

    The article also reminds me of the undeniable fact in Vietnam that nowadays, most parents always want native speakers to teach English to their children. In their way of thinking, good English teachers are white-looking. I have witnessed a case where the student’s parents want to move their child to another class as the current teacher has an Indian looking and background.

    It is commonly stated that the greatest method to learn a language is with a native speaker as it brings numerous benefits, but so does communicating with non-native speakers who speak fluently! The most evident example to support my state is the language center I taught in Vietnam. All the teachers are Vietnamese, and English is used both in and out of the classroom. Students at the center can still develop a natural and fluent speaking proficiency.

  • Ziadah Ziad says:

    What an interesting article Ingrid! It reminds me of my young self. When I was young, I didn’t think that I was pretty because almost 100% of Indonesian in the ads had fair skin. Media does play a significant role in shaping our minds. The idea of beauty, what national image should look like, and what readers or citizens of a country should talk about are driven by media.

    In Australia, there are possibly several key factors why the media tends to be ‘white’. First, the monopolization of the mass media ownership in Australia and to whom Australian media is pro seems clear. For instance, for Australian media, covering the story of royal life is much a way more interesting and significant than addressing the suicidal rate of indigenous youth that keep raising or the life of indigenous people. Another key factor is the less diverse people behind the production. The diversity of editors, writers, directors, producers, etc affects what’s on the screens and the papers. Having more colored people behind the production should be a must! It is also important to know how and who/what organizations (gatekeepers) are responsible for filtering the information in the media.

  • Justin says:

    In the early 2000s, many American, British, and Australian shows were broadcast on national television in my country and reached great popularity. These English-speaking shows feature casts of predominantly white actors, which has probably contributed to the deeply imprinted perception that white people equal English speakers in our society.

    However, as TVs have shifted focus to airing domestic and East Asian shows, English shows now are rare to find on national channels. The youth have abandoned TV and now turn to streaming platforms, where they can choose to watch what suits their interest. I acknowledge that contemporary shows have attempted to bring a more diverse cast for a better representation of the English-speaking world, but they lack a universal appeal and widespread popularity. What I mean is that now there are so many shows with a wider variety of themes and topics to choose that people’s attention is too scattered to counter the common misconception about whiteness vs. English.

    Of course, this perception is changing, but it’ll be a long way when it is still more convenient to assume all native English speakers as white – as people have more classic examples from the past to draw from.

    • Thanks, Justin! You are making an important point: both the cultural hegemony of TV and the west is on the wane … will be interesting to see whether any dominant language ideologies emerge in these new media spaces, or whether it all just fractures into a great variety of media users?

      • Justin says:

        So far I find that the media in my country has shifted to portray English as an international language, and now learning English has become a norm that has little connection with the cultural impact of English-speaking countries. However, there are indeed a great variety of media users, and who knows what kind of ideology they are exposed to. More people knowing English means more information they can read and watch. For example, shows with the presence of people of other races can be acclaimed as a better representation of the real world, but others can claim it as annoying political correctness.

  • Milla says:

    Thank you Ingrid for an interesting article! Border Security is also broadcasted in Finland, and I believe that many there have seen at least an episode or two. Before I came here to Sydney, I heard multiple comments from my family and friends about not bringing any food supplies with me to the border or if the next time they’ll see me will be on tv as I am taken into custody.

    I find it interesting that, especially in the movies and tv-series, the “bad guys” differ depending on where and when the movies were produced. In the movies filmed in western countries during the cold war, the villains frequently came from the Soviet Union or the Eastern Bloc. As years went by, the Middle Eastern countries also started filling this place in western film production. In comparison, in the Finnish movies, the threat often origins in the Baltics or other parts of Eastern Europe. I wonder how these things are represented in different parts of the world, like Asia or South America. And more importantly, why do we have the urge to place evil outside the borders of our own property?

    • Thanks, Milla! Border Security is a global franchise – in addition to the Australian version, there’s a Canadian, US, UK, Spanish, Latin American version, and who knows how many others … the pattern is a bit different from the stereotypical bad guys in the movies, in that Border Security purports to show “real people” …
      You ask why humans have the urge to cast aspersions on outsiders – it’s our main way of constituting an in-group; large groups such as nations are fictions and their maintenance requires continuous “border work” to remind everyone who is in and who is out …

    • Laura says:

      Thanks Milla! I think you brought up an important point about one of the goals behind this type of program. No doubt, one of the reasons that the Australian authorities are happy to cooperate closely with the broadcaster/producers is that they see this show as capable of acting as a teaching tool or guide to influence (potential) travelers’ behaviour.

  • Hana says:

    Thank you for giving me an interesting story today. I have also heard from a long time ago that Australia is a multicultural country, but racism exists to some extent, and white supremacy still remains. In fact, I have never been to Australia myself, but I also learned about Australia through documentaries and various media. And from this, I learned that Australians can recognize as outsiders if they do not speak Australian English, as in the article.

    Even in Korea, where I live, there is a unique accent and tone depending on each region. This is also the most commonly used device in many Korean films to distinguish or emphasize the background by region. As such, language reflects the cultural characteristics of the country or region through various media. There are more opportunities to change stereotypes because I can access lots of sources from various countries through media such as YouTube even if I have not lived in any region. Therefore, I think the use of such media is very important in this global era.

    • Thanks, Hana! It’s indeed amazing how we can today travel the world through media without ever leaving home … these armchair travels can both challenge and reinforce stereotypes; or break down and reinforce barriers. How do you distinguish between these two effects of your media use?

  • Dung says:

    Thank you for sharing this article! To be honest, Border Security is also my favorite TV show recently because it helps me to have a deep understanding of dedicated officers who are in charge of protecting Australia’s border.
    When I was a child, I also believed that Australians were white English speakers because nearly everything about Australia I encountered during that time related to the presence of white English-speaking guys. For example: news, advertisements,…However, with the development of the Internet, especially Google and YouTube, I have more opportunities to search for explanations from different sources and change my perception. Now I know that Australia is a multicultural country with people coming from different backgrounds.
    Besides, I also agree that the media teach us how to see. Some of my Korean friends told me that they did not have a good impression of me at the first time we had met each other. The reason was that on Korean national channels and TV dramas, they often saw negative news about the bad behaviors of some Vietnamese people living in Korea (stealing, illegal living,…). Therefore, they had an assumption that Vietnamese people are bad.

    • Thank you, Dung! I’m not surprised to hear that you like watching Border Security – as drama it is well done … media stereotypes are also a bit of a chicken and egg problem: the media undoubtedly teach us ways of seeing, but for that to work they must connect with existing stereotypes.

  • Jhonny says:

    Programs like Airport Security have stigmatized Colombians, linking us with narcotraffic. Unfortunately, this is not the only instance of generalization. Now, I will show a different perspective, via an incident between the media and Colombia’s current UN Ambassador.

    Leonor Zalabata, Guneywya in Arhuaco, belongs to the Ika tribe. She has been a Human Rights Commissioner and was Delegate during the Colombian Constitutional Assembly. She received the Anna Lindh Human Rights Award, because of her work towards protecting indigenous communities inhabiting Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta during the Colombian armed conflict. She was recently designated as Colombia’s Ambassador to the UN.

    The previous credentials didn’t seem enough for the journalist Paola Ochoa, who stated during an interview: “The UN is the most important multilateral organization… and where the language of communication is English, do you speak English?”. Zalabata replied: “No, I don’t… I speak Irkum, Arhuaco, and… Spanish…”.
    Besides being highly stereotypical, Ochoa’s statement ignores that Spanish is a UN official language, contributing to a racialized and fixed perspective of Colombian Diplomats as private university graduates, fluent in English, and belonging to wealthy families. Zalabata’s designation constitutes a milestone for Indigenous Peoples and a new beginning for Colombian diplomacy.

    Source: https://www.elciudadano.com/en/racism-or-classism-a-journalist-asks-the-indigenous-leader-who-will-represent-colombia-at-the-un-if-she-speaks-english/07/21/

    • Thank you, Jhonny, for sharing this pertinent example! Many people today are aware that English can serve as an index of race but that it also – and probably more so – serves as index of class is widely overlooked. The news items is also a clear example how such relationships between language and race/class are inscribed and re-inscribed in interaction.

  • Ste says:

    There has been a trend of depicting the dark side of the western society on Chinese TikTok or other social vlog media either state-own or private, because these videos can attract public attention and get a lot of traffic which is reflected in the number of “Likes” and “followers”. In these short films, the vloggers are mostly Chinese and the subject they filmed relates to crimes in western countries such as robbery and gun fighting. The vloggers frequently employ terrifying background music and filters to amplify the image of turmoil and unrest in western society, leaving a great deal of room for people to misunderstand and distort the facts and reasons behind every single event. I have noticed that some people who like to watch these negative videos tend to go to extremes and think that the entire globe is particularly hazardous except China. To them, the word “West” has a negative connotation and subconsciously means “everywhere except China”.

    Based on the observations above and my previous experience living in Australia, I have been aware of the issue that this is a kind of “diplomatic” combat between or among different forces. In most Chinese media like TikTok, it is much easier to hear the negative side of the West than to hear the positive one. The same is conversely true in Australia, as certain media would often exaggerate and misreport events that happened in China. Some media functions as a tool for the governing power to misguide and manipulate the public’s perceptions. I think this is one of the reasons why ordinary people from the West and China do not understand each other.

  • Brownie says:

    Thanks for your article, Ingrid.
    Not only in Australia, many people in my hometown also think that Australians are Caucasians. One of the reasons is that they haven’t come to Australia before and they just know how Australians look like through movies, cartoons, or TV shows. Moreover, most people believe that good English teachers look white and speak English as they think English belongs to white-looking people, not others.

    However, I believe that kind of perception has changed gradually. Nowadays, many English movies and cartoons choose their main characters (good characters) or actors and actresses who are from diverse races and ethnics. I think this action can reduce gradually the thought of audiences that white people are better than other races and ethnics. For example, you can consider the movie below, it is comedy film series about international students in Australia from many countries in the world. It also provides a message about racial equality in Australia in episode 3.

  • Yoonie says:

    A couple of years ago, one of the major broadcasting company in Australia, Channel 9 assauted BTS in one of their entertainment channel, 20 to One. They said that they were so shocked to see non-English speakers like BTS winning the Billboard in the States, that their speech at UN was a total mess because of their poor English and that they were sure at least one of the memebers is gay. Of course, there rose a wave of complaints from viewers. More shocking was the company’s response: they are sorry about the incovenience but their language did not violate any code of conduct according to their internal policy.

    This event clearly showed how a big media company defines hatred and discrimination in their policy. This is not about someone’s preference on BTS. If media poses this stance, many viewers will take it for granted and have the same definition on hatred and discrimination. However, we don’t need any more racists in this era of international diversity.

  • Ella says:

    What an interesting article!
    I have not watched “Border Security” and to be honest, I never imagined that this kind of linguistic and racial differences are revealed in Australia. It is probably because I had no knowledge of diverse languages and cultures in Australia, which I am aware of now.

    The tendency of considering English speakers to be only white is not just happening in Australia. I believe that it is globally widespread. Likewise, in South Korea, many people still believe that only white people speak fluent English, and all white people speak native English. Media such as television has triggered people to have this prejudice, showing mostly white people teaching English. That’s why parents have preferred white English teachers to the ones who speak native English but have different cultural and racial backgrounds. I believe that this should change because there are so many diverse people with different racial and cultural backgrounds who speak English as their first language.

    • Thanks, Ella! The belief in white people as the best English language teachers may even lead to differential remuneration: a PhD thesis I supervised some time ago found that, in Taiwan, white English language teachers received higher salaries even if they were non-native speakers than Asian teachers, even if they were native speakers …
      Chang, Jackie. (2004). Ideologies of English Language Teaching in Taiwan. (PhD), University of Sydney, Sydney.

  • Japanda says:

    Thank you for an interesting article. Some Japanese people are also likely to imagine that native speakers of English are white. One possible reason is that they are exposed to commercials for English conversation schools on television daily. There are usually a white English teacher and a Japanese student in commercials. We see a student improving their English skills with the teacher’s help. Many people think they want to develop their English skills, so they feel close to the student. This way some people tend to think native speakers of English are white and their English is “correct”.

    I also checked a webpage of a company running more than 250 English conversation schools in Japan. The biggest picture on it shows a classroom where a white teacher teaches English to Japanese students. This also leads people to unconsciously think that native speakers are white. By reading your article and writing this comment, I have realized that someone might control our ways of thinking and we must keep in mind to think about the truth.

    • Thanks, Japanda! As you say, TESOL advertising is another striking area where the ideology of English as a white language is constructed and reconstructed. Some years ago, I co-authored a study about the construction of English in promotional materials for English language teaching in Japan, and how they are received by language learners. Maybe you’d like to read it:
      Piller, Ingrid, & Takahashi, Kimie. (2006). A passion for English: desire and the language market. In Aneta Pavlenko (Ed.), Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression, and representation (pp. 59-83). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
      You can download a copy here: https://languageonthemove.com/downloads/PDF/piller_takahashi_2006_akogare.pdf

  • Abed says:

    After watching an episode of “Border Security” I believe even the whitest white wouldn’t pass these guys may God bless their hearts and their “white intentions” A 164 episodes of doubt and suspicions over a guy who brought three illegal apples in his pack back and another who brought a dried fish. Although I totally agree with the border security policies, but clearly, they took it to another level. Practicing something for a long period of time make you a professional, a master of doubt in this case. They went from diving into other peoples’ intentions to freestyle swimming, that must have an impact on their personal lives as well. It is easy to have a prepared profile and a tag ready to stick as soon as somebody walks in these lines of border security and no wonder why when you treat everyone else as an outsider.
    A funny incident happened to a Chinese girl on TikTok the other day when she found an empty parking spot and tried get in. She used her indicator to turn in but at the same time from the other side an old lady tried to get in as well and refused to give up that spot. The girl rolled down her window and explained that she claimed it first with her indicator. The old lady responded “but I saw it before you?” She explained further but the old lady interrupted her “Just like this country I got here first!”

    • Thanks, Abed! You are right that the “security issues” on the show are often very minor … and interesting comparison with the TikTok video (which I haven’t seen): much of the show is a persistent indirect assertion that Anglos “got here first” …

  • Sharkie says:

    I also watched the “Border Security” show for the past few years and definitely noticed almost all targeted suspects were people from a diverse background while the native white English speakers are the security officers. Unfortunately, TV shows love adding drama effects and therefore it made those suspects look even worse to audiences, even if the issue was actually just a minor one.

    Nowadays, people rely on the media so much to learn new things. But sometimes how the media represents certain cultures might indirectly deliver false messages and lead to audiences’ misconception, it is kind of similar to being “mind controlled”. Back in 2009, the National Security Law was established in my home country Macau, which has influenced the media at the same time via adding more Mandarin TV shows in Macau or encouraging people learning Mandarin. Once tourists arrive and watch the TV shows in the hotel, they may notice people speaking Mandarin and may think all local people also use Mandarin in Macau. I remembered I was approached by quite a few tourists from Korea and the Philippines and they all tried their best to ask me for directions in Mandarin, I was quite confused at that time.

  • Jeff says:

    Thank you for this interesting post, Ingrid! The show “Boarder Security” is a great example of how difficult it is for a society to shed its historical fictions and prejudices. It is a bit shocking to think that if the modern technology were to be removed from the situations in the show, the attitudes expressed by the officers would likely not be out of place in the early to mid 1900s. Shows like this can be damaging because they normalize intercultural ignorance while also playing into people’s fear of others. The manner in which the officers communicate with the travelers makes it clear that they had little intercultural communication training, which is unfortunately all too common in similar positions around the world.

  • John McKeon says:

    Thank you for this, Ingrid. I never sit to watch “Boarder Security”. Up until now I have loathed the show without articulating to myself, let alone to anyone else, what it is that gets under my skin about it. This analysis of the show stands as a witness to well organised, nasty bigotry.

    • Thanks, John! That pretty much sums it up – and it’s perfectly deniable!

    • Paul Joseph Desailly says:

      My thoughts exactly, John. I used to wonder what it was that I so disliked about that show and now I know. I used to think too that the overabundance of white faces (pink in my case) in Oz, and especially on TV, would solve itself in time.

    • Laura says:

      Thanks, John! Analysing the data we collected was actually quite difficult at times, but also there was (and is) so much to say about it! Hopefully we can publish more on this soon.

  • Angela Turzynski-Azimi says:

    Thanks for this fascinating post on the only reality TV show I regularly watch, Ingrid! I am always troubled by the fact that the officers almost always speak to non-native English speakers without, seemingly, any consideration for the fact that their accent, idiomatic speech and vocabulary may well be impeding the communication. A nod from the traveller seems to satisfy them that their message has been understood. Arrogance and sarcasm on the part of the officers are also not unusual features of the interaction. It certainly suggests a complete lack of training in inter-cultural communication.

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