Complicity and Resistance in Cathy Park Hong’s “Bad English”

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In her essay “Bad English,” Cathy Park Hong champions non-standard language as a tool for decolonial resistance. Her project is to reframe what has historically been a source of immigrant shame into a site of power. She argues that this “Bad English” can function as a “fugitive tongue,” a creative and communal language capable of decentering whiteness and “forging solidarity among disparate marginalized groups” (97, 104). The essay’s primary argument celebrates this linguistic rebellion as a path toward community. Yet, this liberatory project is complicated by a surprising feature in Hong’s own narrative. She recounts a childhood memory where she was shamed for her appearance not by the white majority, but by her Korean peers, who used the very “basic English” she later champions to taunt her: “‘Why do you have such a big nose?’ ‘Big nose’” (95). Why does Hong include these moments of intra-communal cruelty, which seem to directly contradict her argument that “Bad English” builds solidarity? To resolve this tension, we must examine how Hong strategically juxtaposes these painful memories of exclusion with idealized moments of community, thereby refining her argument about the conditions under which language can be liberatory.

Hong builds her central thesis by defining “Bad English” in direct opposition to the sterile, market-driven efficiency of standardized American English. She argues that the modern world, particularly “the Internet,” demands a linguistic clarity that has no patience for the nuances of an accented voice, lamenting that “bad English is a dying art because the Internet demands we write clear, succinct poems that stop us mid-scroll” (104). In contrast, she champions “Bad English” as an “interactive diction that must be read aloud to be understood,” a form that requires the listener to “slow down and listen with your body” (104). This vision is explicitly political and coalitional. By its very nature, it resists capitalist efficiency and creates a space for a different kind of engagement, one that “brings together racial groups outside whiteness” (104). Drawing on the work of poet Nathaniel Mackey, Hong distinguishes between artistic “othering,” which fosters innovation, and social “othering,” which serves to centralize power and exclude (97). For Hong, “Bad English” is the ultimate form of artistic othering, a way to “carve up English” not into “hostile nation-states” of isolated identity, but into a thriving ecosystem of “cross-cultural inspiration” (102). This framework is hopeful, positioning shared linguistic imperfection as the foundation for a more just and interconnected world.

However, this optimistic project is complicated by a personal anecdote that reveals a more painful reality. Recounting a childhood insecurity, Hong describes her obsessive attempts to draw idealized girls with “fetishized anime eyes” to compensate for her own nose, which she considered a “misfortune” (95). The destabilizing moment lies in the source of this feeling. It was not inflicted by the white gaze, but by her peers within her own ethnic enclave. At her Korean church, other children pointed at her and said in their “basic English”: “‘Why do you have such a big nose?’ ‘Big nose’” (95). This brief, harsh interaction is significant because the language used is a quintessential example of the “Bad English” Hong celebrates. It is grammatically simple, lexically blunt, and spoken between members of a minority group. Yet, its function here is entirely exclusionary. It does not forge connection; it disrupts it. It does not challenge power; it establishes a painful social hierarchy based on an internalized aesthetic standard. The children, using the linguistic tool of the marginalized, replicate the exclusionary logic of the dominant culture.

This scene reveals that the category of “Bad English” is not monolithic; its political meaning is defined by its function, not its form. The children’s taunts are formally “bad,” but functionally they uphold a painful social hierarchy. This forces a re-evaluation of Hong’s central thesis and connects to other moments of linguistic shame in the text. For instance, Hong confesses that her mother’s own “rudimentary” English is a “crush of piano keys that used to make me cringe whenever she spoke to a white person” (98). The difficult irony is that while Hong feels shame stemming from her mother’s “Bad English” in the presence of whiteness, she also suffers directly from the “Bad English” of her peers. This reveals a complex internal landscape where the language of her community is simultaneously a source of connection, a source of second hand embarrassment, and a direct instrument of personal pain. The problem is not the language itself, but the judgments attached to it, both from outside and, more painfully, from within.

This mechanism of internalized judgment moves beyond mere aesthetics and into the policing of identity itself. Hong recalls other memories of ostracism at a Korean church camp, where a note with the words “Ketty, go home” was placed on her pillow and other girls mocked her with taunts, for instance, “Bitch, what are you looking at? Are you a lesbo?” (92). Here the function of “Bad English” becomes even more troubling. The phrase “Ketty, go home” is a chilling echo of nativist rhetoric, repurposed within a community of immigrants and their children to mark one of their own as an outsider. The taunt about her sexuality further demonstrates how this peer group polices not just ethnicity and appearance, but also gender and sexual identity. This punishes any perceived deviation from the norm. In these moments, “Bad English” is not a tool for liberation but a weapon to enforce conformity. These anecdotes prove that one does not need to master standard English to master the logic of social cruelty.

To resolve this paradox, Hong deploys a powerful juxtaposition, contrasting these wounding scenes with the healing community forged by the artist Wu Tsang at the Silver Platter bar. She describes this bar as a “secret utopia” for a diverse group including “local trans women,” artists, and queers, many of whom are Black and brown (107, 106). Two rhetorical features in this description particularly emphasize its function as a site of communal care. First, Hong notes that in this space, “love need not be verbal” because connection is built through non-linguistic means like “touch, food, or shared nightlife” (107). This broadens the concept of communication beyond language, suggesting that true solidarity is grounded in shared experience and mutual support. Second, by placing this idealized scene in the same essay as her own stories of alienation, Hong establishes an analytical contrast that illuminates her deeper argument. The church camp and the Silver Platter come to represent two divergent possibilities for a marginalized community: one where its own tools are used to enforce boundaries and inflict pain, and another where they are used to create a chosen family.

Thus, Hong uses the same tool — “Bad English”— to name two divergent outcomes: one of social exclusion and one of communal solidarity. Recognizing the dual potential of this language inherent in the essay leads to a new understanding of the problem Hong diagnoses—it is neither simply the external pressure of whiteness nor the internal dynamics of a community, but an insidious cycle where external shame is internalized and reproduced. Hong reveals this cycle when she writes about her own complicity, confessing her cringe at her mother’s English even as she suffers from the English of her peers (98). Consequently, the framework of wounding and healing allows us to see that Hong is revealing “Bad English” to be a neutral medium, a tool whose moral valence is determined entirely by its user’s intent. The true decolonial project, she suggests, is not just about reclaiming a language, but about the difficult, internal work of choosing to wield it for connection rather than judgment. Once readers understand this cycle, one wonders — how do we, in our own communities, ensure we are using our words to build and not to break?

Works Cited

Hong, Cathy Park. “Bad English.” Minor Feelings, One World, 2020, pp. 91-109.