Although current analyses of linguistic crossing evaluate the immediate intra-speaker social consequences of crossing, the ways in which crossing reflects and reinforces broader social structures of power and oppression should also be taken into account, as the social meaning of crossing draws not only from immediate social interaction, but also from broader social projects. This study examines the appropriation of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) by Asian hip-hop group Far East Movement (FM). Using a dialect density measure (DDM), I show that FM uses AAVE at higher rates in sexualized party music versus nonsexualized ballads. I argue that this use of AAVE is a problematic subversion of Asian emasculation via the appropriation of Black masculinity.

In this study, I will investigate the features of the Asian American English ethnolinguistic repertoire as per Newman & Wu (2011)’s conclusion. I will collect interview data from a number of Asian American speakers as well as white American speakers and analyze them for the features described in Newman & Wu (2011), Hanna (1997), Wong (2000), and Ito (2010). In collecting data from both Asian American and white American speakers, I plan on illuminating the differences between the two and asking whether Asian Americans simply “sound white”, or whether there are subtle sociophonetic cues that can differentiate the two.

Initial term paper draft version of article workshopped in WGSST 8800 Publishing the Academic Article to become “Problematizing sociolinguistic authenticity: Considering power, oppression, and cultural appropriation in crossing.”