Which One Should I Choose?

So I have to fill out this “Questionnaire for Native Teachers of English” which was sent to me by the province.  I came across the second question on “Nationality.” It has the usual choices:

American
Canadian
British
Australian
New Zealander
Irish
South African

But then you have this section:
Others (Korean American, Chinese American, etc.)

Am I an “Other” or an “American?” Hmm. In case you don’t know, if you are “non-white” you are considered “Other.” Because when Koreans/Japanese/Chinese/etc think of “Americans” they think of only white people. Which is why non-American whites are apparently “American” as well. I’ve noticed this is especially frustrating for Asian-American/Canadian/British etc. teachers who “look” Korean but are actually not Korean. Another scenario is that they are of Korean ethnicity, but they do not speak the language.  Despite this being a prevalent thing, I think this concept of who is “insert nationality” is slowly changing and people are realizing non-whites can be Americans, Canadians, British, etc. too.

I showed that question to my boss and even he had to shake his head at that along with the other questions on the questionnaire. One question asked me “What teaching experiences have you had in Korea” and “None” was not an option available. The same goes with the lack of “None” on the question “What problems do you experience in your school work besides teaching?” Also, the answers one give on these surveys are supposed to be confidential, but you have to give the survey back to your boss so he/she can put in the appropriate answers in some spreadsheet and send it off. I have taken research design classes and this breach of confidentiality is a big no no. This was a poorly designed survey….that’s for sure. And poorly designed surveys tend to come out with extremely high error margins!!!!

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