Flipping The Script
My friend, who is Vietnamese, gets told “Speak English, you’re in America!” all the time. It got quite annoying to him, so he eventually decided to do something about it. He looked up the Native American tribe whose tribe was originally on the land where he lives, went to the tribe’s cultural center, told the elderly grandma working there he was tired of being told to speak English in America, and had her teach him how to say “White person/outsider/non-native” in the language as well as some other curse words and whatnot.
Apparently this made that Native American granny’s week, because she went all out and really taught him quite a lot. And ever since, any time some jerk tells him to speak English in America he says, “Well why don’t you speak [Native American tribe’s language], we’re in [Native American tribe]’s lands! You darn [Native American word for white person]!”
The shocked face he gets in response never gets old. They completely freeze up for a few seconds, before responding in entertaining ways such as gasping for air or pointing their finger angrily or just turning and walking away. And then it got better. Eventually, the word spread among my group of friends and quite a few of them—who as immigrants, or even just people who speak a second language, occasionally also get told this—are always chomping at the bit to get their chance to use this response.
Every time some of them finally do, they immediately announce it to everyone they know and it really never gets old.