{"id":302,"date":"2009-04-10T09:08:09","date_gmt":"2009-04-10T09:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/asian-american-names-are-too-h.html"},"modified":"2009-04-10T09:08:09","modified_gmt":"2009-04-10T09:08:09","slug":"asian-american-names-are-too-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/asian-american-names-are-too-h.html","title":{"rendered":"Asian American names are “too hard to deal with”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> is probably more worthy of mockery than scorn:<\/p>\n

A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification
\nlegislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are
\n“easier for Americans to deal with.
…<\/p>\n

The exchange
\noccurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony
\nfrom Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese
\nAmericans.<\/p>\n

Ko told the
\ncommittee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often
\nhave problems voting and other forms of identification because they may
\nhave a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is
\nused on their driver’s license on school registrations.<\/p>\n

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.<\/p>\n

“Rather than
\neveryone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather
\ndifficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your
\ncitizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”
\nBrown said.<\/p>\n

Brown later told
\nKo: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot
\neasier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a
\nname just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to
\ndeal with?”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

God forbid that Americans learn someone’s name. No, if your name is too ethnic, then it’s your responsibility to make it simpler, i.e. less Asian. What is particularly ignorant here is that the whole point of the confusion that Ko alluded to is that Chinese and other oriental immigrants often do adopt english names in public to make things easier – my childhood Korean friend (citizen born in the US just like myself) Yongsuk goes by Dave, for example. Other asian friends and acquaintances of mine are James, Johnny, Phil, even a Rosemarie. The problem arises not because the legal, transliterated name is too complicated, it’s because new and\/or elderly immigrants might get confused by the process because it is sometimes unclear what name to use. The desire is to have their vote expressed and counted; it’s easy to see why someone might be worried that if they used their real name, then no one mihgt know who they are, because everyone calls them Jim. It’s a matter of voter education and some effort at simplifying the registration process to accomodate this pootential confusion so no citizen – especially an immigrant – is excluded from this basic democratic function.<\/p>\n

However we desis, admittedly, are pretty stubbborn about insisting on our full names in all their glory. So in the spirit of compromise, I am doing my part. Henceforth I will be known as Osbourne Piszczatowski.  Call me Ozzie P for short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}