This study indicates that bought vowel pronunciations by Cantonese heritage Chinese Americans in New York City and San Francisco correspond more with respective regional patterns than with each other. These quantitative findings require contemplation of the intricate semiotic links of this variable with non-Asian ethnicities and of speakers’ parley of their local and cultural identities among divergent (,shifting) sociohistorical sites. Regional features may thus signal regional identity and its crossing with ethnicity.