Cultural Identity: What's in a Name?
Alyson Lee
The first time I ever felt grateful for an English name was at the beginning of social studies class in sixth grade. Walking in from recess, a substitute informed us that our normal teacher was sick, and that she would be taking over for the day. She ushered us into our seats and began the typical lesson with little difficulty.
The real issue arose during roll call.
Our substitute read smoothly from a crisp list of first names, a chorus of “Here’s” and “Present’s” followed every shout like clockwork. But then her voice faltered. There was a pause. It was brief but abrupt enough to raise the attention of the whole class. We watched her carefully as she attempted the opening vowels of a name, only to give up halfway through, butchering the ending. As any other easily amused group of sixth graders would do, we burst into laughter. A hand raised slowly from the back of the room, and our Asian classmate informed her that he went by Alex. His proclamation spurred another round of unreasonable laughter.
While the rest of the class finished roll call without further disruption, my friend caught my eye and whispered over to me. She told me how she felt bad for the substitute; it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t pronounce such a foreign name. How embarrassing. I wasn’t quite sure if she was referring to the teacher or the boy, but I quickly agreed with her because either way, her words made perfect sense. It had been embarrassing.
That was the first time I associated shame with a name.
From then on, I came to pity those with names composed of harsh sounding syllables and clashing consonants that never seemed to blend quite right in English. I clung tightly to my American name, Alyson, a safety blanket for me to cover my cultural insecurities and fear over whether I deserved to represent my heritage. Whether I even wanted to.
My middle names were another topic. I have two of them. You see, each one meant to represent a half of my split heritage: Korean and Chinese.
Suyun is my Korean middle name, given to me by my great grandfather, originating from some old Korean folk tale whose story has been forgotten over time. Perhaps I should’ve asked him what the story was; perhaps I should’ve bothered to learn the tale of my own namesake, but the opportunity for that disappeared when he passed away a few years ago.
Mei is my Chinese middle name, given to me by my paternal grandparents. It means beautiful, and that’s about all I know.
For the majority of my life, I saw my middle names as empty vessels that were probably meant to carry some deeper secret of my personal identity, but every time I saw them written out on my passport or some other official document, all I saw were words on paper. They were a part of me, but in the most superficial way possible.
They also did little to tie me into my culture. I knew practically no Korean or Chinese, and while my relatives never openly expressed their disappointment, I carried enough of it within myself. I felt it in every Thanksgiving dinner I smiled and nodded at, hoping it wasn’t too obvious that their conversation eluded me entirely. I felt it with every Korean New Year when I put on my Hanbok and relearned the handful of words meant to convey good luck and prosperity, the words meant to convey a year of happiness, the words I couldn’t even pronounce properly.
I remember watching movies with my friends in middle school, how they’d point whenever an Asian actress came on screen (always the brainy sidekick, of course), and say “Hey look! It’s Aly,” and we’d all crack up because it was just a joke. How the credits would roll and we’d laugh until our stomachs hurt trying to pronounce the craziest names. How I’d go home and feel grateful mine would never be one of them.
I remember entering high school a few years later and seeing all the diverse clubs and students within them, flaunting their cultures with pride and representing everything I had taught myself to push down. There were K-Pop performances in the gym and stickers handed out during lunch and a flurry of flyers inviting me to join every cultural club under the sky. Our school had days dedicated to “Club Rush,” where students could simply walk around club booths and join those that piqued their interest. It was on one of those days that two upperclassmen approached me, shoving two flyers into my hand and pitching their respective clubs. One proclaimed the Korean Student Association was perfect for me while the second insisted the Chinese Student Association would be a great fit. I was incredibly flustered by their brash speeches and confidence, so I was ready to take their flyers and book it like the terrified freshman I was, when they finally stopped to ask me what my ethnicity was. When I informed them that I was both Korean and Chinese, their faces lit up with excitement and the realization that they did not have to compete for my commitment. I could simply join both. But I didn’t.
Over time, I came to understand that losing culture does not mean waking up one day and renouncing all ethnic roots and ties to foreign countries. Cultural rejection takes shape in a multitude of forms; it survives in a variety of small choices we make every day. Cultural rejection is when you stop correcting those who pronounce your middle name wrong. Cultural rejection is when you don’t join ethnic clubs in high school because you’re too overwhelmed by the pressure to pick one.
Cultural rejection is a process. It’s slow and gradual, and it doesn’t even feel that noticeable until one day you wake up and find that you know more about America’s history than your grandmother’s. You can recite the first ten amendments of the US Constitution, but you don’t know your great grandfather’s Korean name.
I wasn’t even truly conscious of this until the end of tenth grade. All sophomores were required to write a sophomore thesis, or a detailed research paper on an art piece of our choice, complete with an annotated bibliography in MLA format. It counted as a large portion of our final grade, so the pressure was on. Naturally, I gravitated towards books, where my passion for words truly lay.
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club caught my attention, and I found myself drawn into the conflicted struggle between immigrant mothers and daughters as they attempted to bridge a profound cultural divide. I saw myself in every forgotten Chinese word and misinterpreted phone call. I heard my grandmother’s voice in every story passed down and traditional dinner prepared.
Writing that paper forced me into a new perspective. I did research on foreign immigration in general, as well as within my own personal life. I called both sides of my family and found answers to questions I had never even bothered asking for fifteen years. I learned and wept and laughed with my great grandmother’s stories. I felt proud to have such a complicated yet resilient history in my blood.
I realized that for far too long I had tried to view each name, each part of me, as separate entities. They were individual pieces of a puzzle, and perhaps, if I could just learn how to fit them together properly, I could take a step back and understand who I was supposed to be. I have come to realize, however, that I am not a puzzle, and my names are not jigsaw pieces.
Words are just words until we choose to give them meaning. It’s an active choice I make each day to continue breathing life into the four words that make up who I am, and it’s an active choice to let those words explain me.
I no longer see my American name as a blessing or a curse. It’s not lucky or unfortunate, and it doesn’t determine the extent of my culture. It’s a word, just like any other, and it’s mine to define.