Styles and stereotypes

The article examines how two Laotian American teenage girls in a multiracial California high school take divergent pathways through contrasting stereotypes of Southeast Asian Americans: model–minority nerd and the dangerous gangster. girls, both first-generation immigrants, each draw on linguistic youth-cultural practices to align themselves some degree with one these while distancing from other. absence an ethnically marked variety English does not prevent construction identities; instead, speakers make use locally available resources their everyday speech practices, including African Vernacular youth slang, produce cultural styles that position them partly inside outside school’s binary black/white racial ideology. argues need be distinctive either between or within ethnic groups order social identities.