Bonita Lee
This photo is a culmination of how I still feel when in the heart of one of the most famous historical places of China, Tiananmen Square. It is fitting how this is the place of rebellion in China, as I was always rebelling against my own culture while trying to fit in when growing up in the United States. My little face hiding in my mother’s arms in the photo is a clear representation of how shy I was and really out of place I felt in my family’s native country, which my family calls home. Growing up, all I wanted was to be like the others, not stand out, and to mimic others around me. Living in a three generation household who all spoke Cantonese, I hated coming home and being forced to speak our native language or bringing to school fried rice for lunch. It was because of this that I happily took on my English name. Only later did I realize that my name ironically came from my parents’ Latino coworker who suggested “Bonita” as my American name which started with the same letter as my Chinese name along with a “nice meaning,” a word that my Chinese parents thought was an English word. As I grow and mature, I love my name even more as it is a culmination of my Chinese upbringing and my closer connection to the culture here in the United States.
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LiLi Marjorie Pigott
"I was born somewhere in China to a family that left me at a police station in Guangdong Province with no name or even a note with my birthday."
Jane Wong
"She asked a random customer to name me my “American” name and loved how simple it sounded...I keep forgetting my Chinese name."
DeShawn Rivers*
"Growing up in Florida, I attended primarily black schools and classmates would often make jokes about my middle name by saying, 'That’s where the black is.'"
Sandy Ha
"I was given one name by my parents when we lived on a different continent. After living in this one for a few years, I chose a completely different name for myself. I was six. "
Cassie Whitebread*
"For me and my mother, this last name adds an extra sticky layer of tension to meeting people for the first time. 'Whitebread? But you’re not white.'"
Jasmine Vu*
"It was not until high school that I became increasingly aware of my identity as an Asian American, which turned into resentment. Why did my parents have to sacrifice their names for survival?"
Dany Srey-Snow
"It’s an invitation for people to really know the authentic me, just like my family. I share how it’s a reclamation practice and it’s been welcomed with openness."
Eric Chan 陳志宇 진지유*
"I must also remind myself that the folk arts I practice are traditionally performed and passed down anonymously, so we need not hold any of our names as sacred, precious, or permanent."
Jay Stoneking*
"Some days I wish I had, just to be more visible among my own community. Other days I feel grateful I don’t have to navigate racism the same way the rest of my family do."
Linda Takano
"While Shay was easy to spell, this name would have its own challenges since it was also a common Irish surname. I could tell people were expecting a person who did not look like me. "
Shin Yu Pai*
"In my early 20s, I traveled to Taiwan on a root-searching tour and upon coming back to the States, decided to reclaim my Taiwanese name, which I have used full-time since being 23."
Carole Hsi Lin Hsiao 蕭席琳*
"All of these names are written in distinct ways to convey political, poetic, and sentimental meanings and all of them are often misspelled or miswritten."
Taslim Jaiyeola Adejare Dosunmu*
"A part of me wishes my name expressed more of my mixed heritage, though my sentiments about that have changed a lot over time depending on the social context I was in."
Jenn Ngeth*
"I remember the first time I heard my mother say my last name out loud. It was the first day of Headstart and just as easily as it slipped out of my mother’s mouth, it was too slippery for my teacher to pronounce."
Renata Lumanau
"I was able to learn Mandarin from a young age, but since we lived outside Indonesia since I was 3 years old, I felt disconnected not only from my Indonesian culture, but even more so from my Chinese one."
Evan 田辺 Captain*
"Much of my childhood and adolescence was shadowed by learning to hide that part of myself because that was easier than just existing in my own truth in a white community."
Ashna Mediratta
"They had moved to the U.S. and were searching for a name that would be easy to pronounce with English letters and sounds, and would not be butchered by an American accent."
Ren Han
"As my gender identity began to differ and change, I gravitated towards my online handle 'Ren.' It was more gender neutral, an ambiguous in-between to all the different iterations of my name."