198. Words That Push People Out
Some of the most xenophobic phrases in everyday English arrived quietly, stripped of their origins and normalized long before anyone thought to question them.
In this fourth episode of the Multicultural Communication and Belonging series, Alejandra Siroka tackles something most communication guides skip: the harmful histories hiding inside ordinary phrases. Not slurs. Not obvious bigotry. The everyday stuff, words so familiar they've stopped registering as anything at all.
Her reframe early on is worth sitting with: xenophobia isn't an irrational fear like a phobia of spiders. It's a learned behavior, spread through language and modeled by the people around us, which means unlearning xenophobia is possible.
She walks through specific examples, "gypped" (rooted in anti-Romani stereotypes), "long time no see" and "no can do" (invented to mock Chinese immigrants in early 20th-century America), and clinical-sounding terms like "illegal alien" that reduce human beings to immigration status. For each one, she offers concrete alternatives, framed not as a politeness exercise but as a tool for saying what you actually mean.
At the center of the episode is a values-based framework for examining your own language. Rather than asking whether something is politically correct or potentially offensive, Alejandra invites you to ask a simpler question: does this language reflect your values? When the internal check is your own values rather than an external list of rules, the shift is far more likely to stick.
What would change if you paused before repeating a phrase you have never once questioned? That hesitation, Alejandra suggests, is information worth paying attention to.
Visit languagealchemy.com to explore Alejandra's transformative communication programs.
Quotes
- "Xenophobia is a learned behavior. We actually learn it from others who model it for us and spread it through their language and communication." (04:23 | Alejandra Siroka)
- "Some xenophobic expressions can become solid beliefs that live on long after any one person or group of people felt that fear, that hatred, or that not knowing." (05:18 | Alejandra Siroka)
- "People do not become illegal. Actions may be unlawful, but a person is never illegal." (13:31 | Alejandra Siroka)
- "If something in you hesitates, that hesitation is information. And it could be an invitation to find a different word or a different expression." (16:12 | Alejandra Siroka)
- "Authentic communication is communication that is in alignment with your values, nobody else's but yours." (17:01 | Alejandra Siroka)
Links
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Podcast Music composed by Gary Lapow: open.spotify.com/artist/1HlMhcNfKIELxYil5mVqD
