I applied for this job here in Seattle at Kiro7 TV. After I interviewed, the news director at the time reached out to my agent and told him he wanted me to change my [last] name. I remember that first conversation I had with my agent and just thinking this seems strange. Not only have I built a career using my name, but it just felt very strange and really inauthentic to suddenly change it to another name and I said, “I don’t even know what I would change my name to,” and I was told to just think of different names. I remember I offered up my husband’s last name, which is Weidert, and I was told, “Nope, not Weidert.” My dad’s name is Kim Song Chhuon. Kim Song is his first name so of course I thought, well, Siemny Kim, Siemny Song. “Kim” did not feel right to me because I know that “Kim” is a traditionally Korean last name. “Song” I felt like I could feel more comfortable with. The news director liked the way “Siemny Kim” sounded. I still felt really uncomfortable because not only would I be taking on a name that is traditionally Korean, but I was also giving up my identifiably Cambodian name. You have to understand that growing up as a refugee in this country, you often feel so invisible under the model minority myth. There just weren’t a lot of Asian Americans who are extremely visible and none who were Cambodian so when I entered my career, I was really proud to be one of the few Cambodians working in tv news and I knew that it was a source of pride for me, but also a source of pride for my community. I remember having a conversation with the news director and shared with him all of my concerns. It was made clear to me that in order for me to accept this job, I would have to be okay with changing my name, that I would have to accept this as a condition of employment.

I always felt uneasy about having changed my name. I felt like I was a sell out. It was always a source of shame for me. Honestly, it was a reminder of how I couldn’t stand up for myself. But I still wanted to be proud of being Cambodian and proud of my refugee roots so on World Refugee Day, I wanted to share that I am a refugee. I found a baby picture, one that was taken of me at the refugee camp before we came here to the United States, but in that picture there’s also a small chalkboard in front of me that has my name on there and also some numbers associated with my status. I wanted people to know that refugees matter and that refugees are among us. But I also felt really uncomfortable because then I would be opening up more questions because people knew me on air as “Siemny Kim,” even my coworkers. It was nothing that I’d ever discussed publicly before and I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to admit publicly that I wasn’t strong enough to keep my own name. So instead, I cropped out my name and I just shared the baby picture.