To Hyphenate Or Not to Hyphenate?
So. I’ve covered “Asian-American” versus “Oriental.” We’ve talked a bit about how “AAPI/Asian American and Pacific Islander” falls short. Now we’re going to talk about something that I was only made aware of recently—Should “Asian American” (and other ethnicities) be hyphenated or not?
Now, personally, I’ve been using the hyphen (so, “Asian-American”) ever since I was corrected somewhere in middle school for apparently incorrectly using “Asian American.” After that, I heard the term “hyphenated American” more and more often, and so just assumed that “Asian-American”/”Chinese-American” would always be the way I’d describe myself.
So when I learned that many journals and style guides were deciding to drop the hyphen, I was surprised. I hadn’t known anything was wrong before, but here’s what I have learned.
For many Asian Americans, placing the hyphen between the two parts of identity is to give them equal weight, when they themselves do not feel this weight. As it stands, “Asian American” without the hyphen designates “Asian” as an adjective which describes what kind of American. As Eric Liu says in his article on why he doesn’t hyphenate “Chinese American,” “I am many kinds of American, after all: a politically active American, a short American, an earnest American, an educated American.”
For a long time, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage and The Associated Press Stylebook used hyphens for certain compound nationalities (ex: “Asian-American”), but not others (ex: “Jewish American”). It wasn’t until 2019 that AP decided to drop the hyphen completely, and in 2021, The New York Times followed suit.
In addition to wondering who is in charge of writing the AP Stylebook, these revisions have brought me to the realization that the AP Stylebook is a lot more interesting than I once thought (as a copy editor for my school’s yearbook, I am constantly checking it for little uninteresting grammar rules, such as, “When should a number be spelled out?”). Want to know whether or not our politics are changing? Here are some particularly interesting revisions and rules as of the 56th edition of the AP Stylebook:
Regarding disabilities: “If individual or group preferences can’t be determined, use a mix of identity-first language and person-first language.” (i.e. “the autistic person” vs “the person with autism”).
Regarding race-related coverage: “‘Black(s)’ and ‘white(s)’ [should not be used] as either a singular or plural noun; previously we had said the plural use was accepted in limited uses.”
Regarding gender, sex, and sexual orientation: “We now use ‘LGBTQ’ instead of ‘LGBT.’” There is also a new deadnaming entry, advising not to use a transgender person’s previous name as much as possible unless required to understand the news or if requested by the person (which you’d think would be logical enough even without the rule but it’s there now).
Regarding terrorism: “describe specific actions that are being perpetrated, and… attribute the use of the word ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorist’ to authorities… except when talking about significant historical events widely acknowledged as terrorist actions.”
(Side note: how much of a nerd am I that the AP Stylebook excites me?)
I often use the word “semantics” irreverently, as in “Oh, whatever, that’s just semantics.” And while I think at times being “politically correct” is awkward and nitpicky (not to mention other hyphen-related issues—did I really need to place that hyphen in that compound when there’s no possibility of mistaking “relatedissues” as one word?), I also know that words have meaning, and the words we use to shape our thoughts into sentences change the form that those thoughts take. Change starts with conversation, which of course requires words and language, which means the rules themselves are subject to change.
