Jasmine Vu
Growing up, I went to a predominately white K-8 Catholic school. Though I never had to experience the struggle of my peers not knowing how to pronounce my name, the topic of names was quite popular in those years. This made me more curious about my name and about my parents’ names because when they both got to America after the war, they chose American names for themselves. I asked them why and they just chalked it up to, “So it was easier for us to get jobs. That is why we gave you and your sister American names so you would not have to change your names in the future.” As a child who was already struggling to fit in, this sounded reasonable. 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? Would I be more in touch with my heritage if I was given a Vietnamese name? Why did I have to grow up in shame surrounding my culture? Was my name meant to serve as a shield against this shame? I grew up loving my name and after reflecting on the context, I am still fond of it. It still has many ties to Vietnamese culture as it is a rice that is commonly eaten in the cuisine, a tea, and a native flower. My parents probably did not think this far when naming me Jasmine, but I think that the name encompasses my identity pretty well.
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"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."
Jane Wong
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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."
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."
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."
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.'"
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."
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. "
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."
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."
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."
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?"
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."
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."
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."
Carole Hsi Lin Hsiao 蕭席琳*
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Bonita Lee*
"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."