Regional variability and ethnic identity: Chinese Americans in New York City and San Francisco

•Chinese Americans in New York City and San Francisco differ in their vowel pronunciation.•Speakers in each city produce the bought vowel in line with their respective regional patterns.•Many older Chinese New Yorkers, similar to their European cohort, produce raised-bought.•Older Chinese San Franciscans, unlike their European cohort, do not produce raised-bought.•The patterning difference is best understood by examining the indexicality of raised-bought.

This paper examines the realizations of the bought vowel (in words like taught and sauce) by Chinese Americans of Cantonese heritage in New York City and San Francisco. Quantitative analyses find that Chinese Americans in the two cities pronounce bought in ways that are more similar to their respective regional patterns than to one another. We argue that the quantitative results should be interpreted by considering the complex semiotic links this variable has with respect to non-Asian ethnicities and by considering speakers’ negotiations of their local and cultural identities amidst different (and changing) sociohistorical contexts. We propose that regional features can index not just regional identity but also its intersection with ethnicity.