A blog I love to follow, Kimchi Mamas pointed me to an article about a Texas Rep. who decided that Asians should adopt names that are "easier for Americans to deal with." She's serious too. The wise Betty Brown was quoted as saying “Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Wow. This hits especially close to home because growing up I had to endure many people calling my mom "Susan" because Soojin was just too hard to say. It's Soo-Jin, what's so hard about that? I'm American and I realize that I will mispronounce many names in my lifetime. My own is mispronounced all the time, my kids' names too and they're "American" names. So what IS an American name? Neveah is an all popular name and yet it took me a year before I finally realized how it's supposed to be pronounced. In a country where Nayeli ranks 377 on the most popular baby names list and celebrities name their kids such names as Tullulah, I think we can cut Asian-Americans a little slack.
Oh, and Brown spokesman Jordan Berry, you're absolutely right. This has nothing to do with race. We're just being asked to re-name ourselves for the convenience of the rest of the American people.
1 comment:
Oh wow! That is insane!
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