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What’s in name? The beginning of bias-that’s what!

 liu.jpg  Our guide, Liu (aka Jason) in Chengdu, PRC

In a hearing to discuss Senate Bill 362 Betty Brown, a representative from Texas has suggested that Asia Americans should change their “names that are easier for Americans to deal with.”   

Senate Bill 362 focuses on restrictive voter ID requirements. According to a member an Asian America advocacy group “people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and identifying themselves because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on identification cards.” Apparently, poll workers have some difficulty finding the names on the voter rolls.

“Representative Brown’s comments made clear that she lacks an understanding of Asian American cultures and that she in fact undervalues other cultures,” said OCA Executive Director George Wu. “It is unacceptable that Representative Brown believes that the burden should be placed upon individual voters to make it easier on poll workers to ensure that the voters get to exercise their right to vote, rather than expecting that the burden lay with the government to do its job correctly,” said Terry Ao, director of Census & Voting Programs at the Asian American Justice Center.  “Participation in the democratic process should unite all Americans; we should be seeking ways to encourage more voters, not inventing excuses to deny citizens their constitutional right to vote.”Interestingly, it is not just Representative Brown who thinks that Americans aren’t bright enough to use a person’s given name.    

When my daughter and I traveled in China recently, every guide we had introduced himself with an English name.  Our guide in Chengdu called himself Jason (after a friend of his) and our guide in Changsha called himself Ashley (after Ashley Wilkes of  Gone With The Wind  fame). 

When we asked them why they used English names both told us that they were required to choose an English name in school and to use it if they were to be successful in the tourism industry in China.

Before you shrug off the name game as just another example of political correctness run amok, ask yourself how would you feel if someone asked you change your name to something easier for them to pronounce, write or remember. I think I would be pretty pissed off and I think you would be, too!

With that in mind, we can start with the small gestures of respect and make an effort to use people’s given names-even if they are somehow difficult for us. You would expect the same respect from them, wouldn’t you?

And isn’t demonstrating respect a cornerstone in raising great kids? 

Come on, this one is a no-brainer.

With Respect,

Deb

 

  

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 8:28 am and is filed under China, bias, children, community, culture, education, family, language, motherhood, motherhood parenting, multiculturalism, parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “What’s in name? The beginning of bias-that’s what!”

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