For this blog, I have decided on a theme that is important to me. I want to discuss the challenges immigrants face when getting settled in a new country, but I will be mostly focusing on immigrants to America. One civic issue that is important to me that revolves around the lives of immigrants and second-generation immigrants is the anglicization of names.
Many immigrants that come to America, try to build a new life for themselves. Sometimes they face many challenges on their way to achieving their goals. One of those challenges is the mispronunciation of names. Names that are significant to one’s culture or ethnicity are so unique and beautiful, but many Americans struggle to say them correctly. This might seem like a small issue in the grand scheme of things, but this can still have negative effects. A mispronounced name can affect people’s chances of getting a job, experiences in school, social lives, and many other aspects of their lives. Because of this many immigrants have chosen to adopt a second anglicized name. Anglicization is the switch to the use of an English sounding personal name from one of a non-English language. Some children of immigrants will do the same if given a name of non-English origin at birth.
*from author*
My father is an immigrant from Singapore. His name is Asoka, which is pronounced phonetically, but somehow, people still have a hard time saying it. He has been called Osaka, Asokie, and Akosa. Despite all of these mispronunciations, he never wanted to change his name; however, he did not wish for his children to deal with the same issues. My older brother was given an Irish name, Ian. I was given and English first name, but my mom pushed for me to have a cultural middle name, Ratnavali, after my grandmother. My younger sister is the only one of my siblings that has a non-English first name, Meena. But my dad had the final say with my youngest sister’s name and chose Gabriella. While I am grateful that people do not mess up my name, I wish my dad had not felt the need to give us English names just to cater to the majority of America.
While some people view anglicization as a choice, others deem it necessary. At a college in California, one professor tried to force a Vietnamese student to Anglicize her name. Click here to read more about her story. Other times, immigrants feel as if they have no choice but to anglicize their names and later regret it. Click here for an article about a young immigrant from India who worked hard to reclaim her given name.
Whether an immigrant chooses to anglicize their name or not is not anyone else’s business. Although it is hard to feel pressure, people should not be forced into changing their given name if they do not want to.
Coming from someone who has an Eastern European name, I understand how you feel and and I think that this is a very valid issue. Some Americans, in my opinion, don’t really understand the meaning behind names and don’t really put in the care to make try and pronounce it the right way. Sometimes you can correct people but there is no guarantee that they will internalize the correction and will likely carry on with the same mispronunciation. Another factor that I think plays into this is who chooses names. Why should names be chosen at birth by our parents? What if we want to change our name when we grow up and have a better sense of who we are?
This is an issue that I have not really heard talked about before this post. I knew a kid in elementary school who actually anglicized his name in around 2nd grade. It was not his choice, and I remember being very confused about it as a kid. I really like your last statement about how nobody should have to do it, but it is still their choice.
This is such an interesting topic! I agree that people should not have to change their name to “fit in” or cater towards the majority of Americans who may have trouble with pronunciation. America is built upon diversity, and unique names is just one aspect of this. I hope that society learns to embrace cultural differences instead of trying to make everyone more uniform; that seems like the opposite of what America should stand for.
This is something I’ve always thought was sad. People shouldn’t feel like they have to change such an important part of themselves just because Americans find it too difficult to say their name. Names are such an important part of identity, and to strip someone of that just because you’re too lazy to learn how to say their name is cruel. I’ve also realized that about 90% of the time people have no excuse to be pronouncing people’s names wrong because they’re completely phonetic. I think the fact that Americans expect people to change their names is disgusting, and I’m interested to learn more about the struggles that people face when they immigrate to America.