[Ads-l] banana

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is an interesting citation in August 1968. The banana
metaphorical framework is employed, but it is applied to Blacks
instead of Asians. The article appeared in a Canadian newspaper, but
the dateline was Hollywood. The speaker Paul Monash was the Executive
Producer of the primetime soap opera Peyton Place.

Date: August 23, 1968
Newspaper: The Vancouver Sun
Newspaper Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Article: This fall television offers a new kind of test pattern. It's
called --- COLOR
Author: Bob Shayne
Quote Page 4A, Column 3
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
"They're second bananas," says Paul Monash of most TV Negroes. "And
when you peel the skins they are pure white inside. When you strip a
man's color from him he is no longer a person. That is ignoring a
central fact of his existence."
[End excerpt]

Below is a 1971 citation that uses "Creamsicles" as well as "bananas".

Date: January 31, 1971
Newspaper: The Sunday Star-Bulletin & Advertiser (The Honolulu Advertiser)
Newspaper Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Article: pidgin-speech favored when it helps learning
Author: Tom Kaser (Advertiser Staff Writer)
Quote Page D23, Column 2 and 3
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
They said students, particularly Orientals, who become "haolefied" in
this way are knows as "Creamsicles" or "bananas"--"yellow on the
outside and white on the inside."
[End excerpt]

In the excerpt above the word "knows" occurred instead of "known".

Garson

On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 5:31 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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