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My daughter, a freshman in high school, is wrapping up her school year with a social studies project about ‘hot button’ or sensitive words and their use in American culture. She needs feedback from a spectrum of folks about the word she’s been assigned in order to do her report.
I’d really appreciate any help you can offer; if you’re not an American citizen, your feedback would also be deeply appreciated. Feel free to leave me your responses and any questions in comments and I’ll get back with you if you need a follow-up. Thanks!
Please provide responses to the following questions:
1. What is the definition of “foreigner”? Please provide your personal definition.
2. How often do you hear the term "foreigner" used?
3. Where do you normally hear the term "foreigner" being used?
4. If someone called you a "foreigner", would you find it offensive, regardless of your citizenship or location?
5. Do you think it acceptable to use this term to describe others?
If you are willing to share this, please also indicate gender, age (decade is fine), state or country of residence at time of survey.
Thank you very much again!
20 Comments
By the way, there were a number of other words, some quite predictable, which were assigned to the kids in this class. My daughter was torn between the desire to get a more challenging and confrontational word, and a word which is more subtle and difficult to pin down as offensive or inoffensive.
I gave it a try and emailed you the results on Facebook. It got too personal for here!
Hi Rayne, this is an interesting project. I’ll give it a shot
1. What is the definition of “foreigner”? Please provide your personal definition.
My personal definition is a person who travels to a country they were not born in. In my mind, the emphasis is on traveling or visiting outside one’s native country.
2. How often do you hear the term “foreigner” used?
Not very often.
3. Where do you normally hear the term “foreigner” being used?
You know, I don’t hear it very often. however, when my husband and I are mocking “redneck talk” or dubya, we will use it to mean immigrant. Ya know, them bein’ ferriners and all. like that. a put down. but we wouldn’t really say that in a real conversation to a person who might be visiting from another country. We do it to make fun of people who feel the need to put people down for being from somewhere else. Provincial people.
4. If someone called you a “foreigner”, would you find it offensive, regardless of your citizenship or location?
It would depend on their intent and ability to be precise in their language.
5. Do you think it acceptable to use this term to describe others?
Not really. I might use it to describe myself as a foreigner ie. outsider in another land. I think it might have had a neutral use in formal travel articles in the language of an earlier day, before travel became so easy. And things really were, er, foreign.
Another way I use the word is its root. Foreign. I might say something is foreign to me, meaning unfamiliar to the point that I do not understand it. I am usually referring to another person’s perspective or behavior and highlighting my lack of understanding. It’s totally foreign to me.
Hope this helps.
not counting the tv tubes or internets, I haven’t heard the term used in every day life accept for torrists
I don’t think it’s a perjurative when referring to tourists, and yes I would be offended if someone called me a foreigner
1. What is the definition of “foreigner”? Please provide your personal definition. Somebody not born in America but hey I’m a Lefty.
2. How often do you hear the term “foreigner” used? Often
3. Where do you normally hear the term “foreigner” being used? The racist Media Lou Dobbs Glen Beck news clips.
4. If someone called you a “foreigner”, would you find it offensive, regardless of your citizenship or location? No I’m Brown I’ve been mistaken for one all my life I’m 3rd generation born here.
5. Do you think it acceptable to use this term to describe others? Not the way the News Media does they make it sound evil like the way the GOP made Liberal sound evil.
If you are willing to share this, please also indicate gender, age (decade is fine), state or country of residence at time of survey. Male, 40, WA
Have I been insulted so much that I consciously don’t care but unconsciously use my anger to help fuel my writing? People unhappy with the system either try and change things by voting for example or they give up and not vote.
I think Obama got elected because enough people got angry and voted.
sorry OT rant.
I think you might get more interesting responses on a GOP blog ask the Malkin crowd, the anti immigrant groups, and of course Ron Paul’s people and then compare the results.
1. What is the definition of “foreigner”? Please provide your personal definition. Someone not from America.
2. How often do you hear the term “foreigner” used? Hardly in the circles I travel.
3. Where do you normally hear the term “foreigner” being used? I rarely hear it used.
4. If someone called you a “foreigner”, would you find it offensive, regardless of your citizenship or location? Yes I would
5. Do you think it acceptable to use this term to describe others? No I don’t because it has taken on a negative connotation in the use of it today.
I’m 49, male, NJ.
Wow, thanks, gang, this is a most excellent selection of responses, including the one I received via Facebook/email.
Would be nice if a couple of female FDL community members could respond as we are now weighted heavily towards male responses.
(This might even say something about this project or the word, but I don’t know what it is…)
An interesting word, although not one that I have heard used much in my lifetime. As a Canadian, I was shocked when it was announced that the illegal wiretapping, e-mail intercepts, mail openings, etc. would apply to communications sent from all foreign countries. The shock was that I lived in a foreign country. It was a “huh?” moment. I have never thought of the US as a foreign country, so it was ‘different’ to hear that mine is to your government.
The concept of foreigner is sometimes used in conversation as to the reality of the fact that any Canadian who is not a descendant of an Indian born in Canada, is a descendant of a foreigner. By that fact, we are all foreigners in our own country. A descendant of anyone whose family originated in another country is technically a foreigner. Sort of odd in a way that Europe is always seen as the source of the original families. It never seemed to enter the conscious thought that an American family who moves to Canada would be a foreign one.
Our Indians..Natives..First Nations people..(name changes..same people) don’t recognize the border with the US. Unless laws have changed in recent years, it has always been acknowledged that an Indian had the right to travel throughout N. America with no restriction. Technically, the border guards had no right to even question why an Indian was going to the US.
It is a word that can be used to further the concept of ‘the other’. The concept that anyone else is not as good..not the same..not worthy of equal rights and protections. It is a word that often means whatever the speaker of the word intends it to mean. By that definition, it can be used as a derogatory label..’a put down’. It is a bit of a loose cannon word. It represents what is wrong with our world. Until we focus on the fact that all humans are the same irregardless of color, place of birth, religion, etc., we will never have peace in this world. The word in the 15th century simply meant a different country from one’s own. It definitely is not used in such a simple context now.
It might just say that I just got around to reading your diary..’g’. No deep dark motive behind not answering sooner. Anyways, this answer covers a female’s and a foreigner’s thoughts. A two in one for your daughter. I wish her well in her assignment.
Thanks for your response. Yes, I imagine it’s pretty strange to think of yourself as a foreigner when only a river or a lake or a wooded stretch of land separates you and me.
In fact my maternal family is French Canadian; we’ve only been American for the last 90 years, having been Canadian since the first French colonists arrived in the mid-1600’s. What makes either of us foreign to each other save for that river, lake, woods and time?
Kathryn in MA (10) — excellent, will have to discuss the use of “alien” with my daughter, who is in the middle of developing a mixed media presentation at the moment around the use of the word “foreigner.”
I pity the poor girl; every time she does a search for relevant content, it pulls up the band Foreigner. And perhaps this says something, too…
One of my grandmothers was born in Missouri, immigrated to Canada and never gave up her citizenship. Some of my uncles choose to get dual citizenship when they became adults because they could ‘thanks’ to her. Did that then make them half foreigners? Or not ever foreigners? When my other uncles and my aunts go to the US, they are always foreigners. I doubt that your daughter could have picked a more challenging word.
A legally defined border is the only reason we are foreign to each other. I was not impressed to read that neither x Presidents Clinton or Bush knew that as of June 1/09, the security increases when a Canadian crosses the border and either a passport or an enhanced (chipped for total government tracking 24 hours a day) licence will be required. This policy was developed under Bush, but he doesn’t know of its existence? Pathetic.
It is really driving home that Canadians are foreign (not to be trusted?) because the rule is not the same for Americans entering Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/sto…..er987.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story…..ronto.html
I heard of an Englishman entering the US, being directed away from the ‘Resident’ entry gate at the airport. He objected mightily at being forced to enter the ‘Alien’ gate; he was NOT an alien.
lol .. the difference between precise “english” and “american english” ..
i fully undrstand the englishman’s objections …
“foreigner” seems to be used when someone does not have knowledge and/or will to apply a more specific identity to someone who is obviously or probably not born within one’s own country. I think it was said decades ago reflecting a more unconscious xenophobic bias. I think it has a degree of negativity to it today, maybe a more conscious uneasiness with an “outsider” when used, in terms of the lack of specificity. But again VERY dependent on the tone and intent of a particular speaker. I think not adding the -er would be more politically correct. That person is foreign-born, or is from a foreign country, feels more politically correct or more benign than “that person is a foreigner”! IMO :) Good luck.
1.Foreigner=someone from another country
2.not often
3. TV, stupid emails
4. Yes. I got called a foreigner because I lived in another state and people thought I was from Mexico. They’d never heard of New Mexico.
“We don’t take foreign checks,” that was said to me in Missouri in the 80s about my traveler’s checks drawn on Bank of New Mexico (via Citibank)
5. No
Wow, thanks much, gang, good stuff here. Margot, are you by any chance of Hispanic/Latin heritage as well? I find a lot of people make assumptions not only based on words but on appearance. My last name is rather unusual and has been misinterpreted often to mean I’m from outside of the country; if my sister with a much darker Polynesian complexion and hair color runs into the problem, it’s less often about the name than her appearance.
I’ll check back again after 1:00 pm EDT; we’ve got some family obligations this morning, but my daughter has to resume work on this project when we return at 1:00 pm as it’s due tomorrow.
BTW, we were ruminating last night on the word “foreign” after watching Wall-E, specifically because of the little cleaning robot in the movie which ran around cleaning up “foreign contaminants” — just another example of a negative connotation.
No, that’s the funny thing about it. That is one ethnic group I can’t claim to be kin to, unlike about 8 others.
1. Someone born in another country.
2. I don’t hear it often.
3. See 5
4. I’d likely think the person using the term was a fool; I’m pretty American; in which case I’d think they were trying and failing to insult me.
5. I rarely use it myself; when needed, I try to use the person’s nationality as a descriptor: she’s from Italy. Occasionally I use it in writing about legal matters. The rights of foreigners are different from the rights of US citizens, so the term is neutral and descriptive of generic status.
Thanks to all who participated, very much appreciate the assist. Let’s hope the kid pulls out an A on this project!