[Ads-l] banana

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Thanks Jim, Ben, and Stanton. Here is a January 1970 citation for
"banana" with the desired sense a few months before the OED citation

Date: January 4, 1970
Newspaper: The Los Angeles Times
Newspaper Location: Los Angeles, California
Section: WEST Magazine
Article: The Awakening of Chinatown
Author: Kenneth Lamott
Start Page 6, Quote Page 14, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
When I asked him about the effect of having another Asian-American,
Dr. S. I. Hayakawa, as president of the college, Mr. Woo smiled
bleakly and said, "He's a banana, if you know what I mean. He is
yellow on the outside and white on the inside."
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 3:14 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This sense of "banana" was added to the OED in a Sept. 2013 draft addition,
> with cites back to 1970.
>
> ----
>   North American (chiefly Canadian) slang (depreciative). A person of Asian
> birth or descent who subscribes to typically western values and attitudes;
> an oriental person regarded, esp. by other orientals, as adopting or
> identifying with white culture. Cf. Oreo n.1 2.
> 1970   Seattle Times Mag. 5 July 9/3   These Filipinos may not be 'oreos'
> or 'bananas', as blacks and other Asians depict their colleagues having
> dark skins outside and a white mentality inside.
> [etc.]
> ----
>
> (The OED's use of "oriental" in the definition is... unfortunate.)
>
> HDAS starts with the same 1970 cite. See also GDoS, with cites back to 1972.
>
> https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/ag4nw3a
>
> --bgz
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 2:54 PM James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>
> wrote:
>
> > A variation on the metaphor "Oreo cookie" = "black on the outside, white
> > on the inside"
> >
> > Kevin Kwan _China Rich Girlfriend_  (Kwan's inferior seqeul to _Craxy Rich
> > Asians_) New York: Doubleday, 2015, ISBN 978-0-385-53908-1 (hardcover) page
> > 169
> >
> > referring to "Rachel", born in China but raised in the US:  "Rachel is
> > cool, there's no bullshit with her.  And she's a total banana [footnote],
> > isn't she?  Just look at how she dresses [page 170] in those  no-name
> > brands, her painful lack of jewelry---she's not like any Chinese girl I've
> > ever met."
> >
> > footnote reads "Yellow on the outside, white on the inside"
> >
> > - Jim Landau
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org