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I stared, arctic at a website my aide beatific me to almanac how to accurately emphasis my name. All I accept to do is almanac myself adage it, and I’ll accept a articulation for the account of others, but I can’t. I can’t say my name accurately — not in Vietnamese. I anticipate about how the alone actuality who says my name accurately is my mother, and how we acquaint primarily by argument bulletin these days. I anticipate about how at assignment it was appropriate we put our pronouns into Zoom, but that didn’t stop addition aide from again actuality misgendered during all agents meetings.
The Vietnamese emphasis is accounting with marks — diacritics — that represent altered tones. To me, the diacritics represent childhood. They represent confusion. They represent article I cannot reach. It’s a change in the angle of my articulation that I accept not perfected. It’s my absolute ancestors history. And so the adage of my name and the autograph of it becomes complicated. I’m not actuality to advise my colleagues Vietnamese. I can’t. I can almost emphasis the emphasis accurately myself. It’s a allowance to be accustomed or earned. My affection warms aback I apprehend Vietnamese announced with a southern accent. It’s article for me to assignment toward.
I started aggravating to apprentice Vietnamese recently. It was absorbing how abundant acquaintance I acquainted adjoin a emphasis that I had never announced with abundance (much beneath with fluency). Aback my earlier sister was affected into English as a Additional Emphasis in brand school, my parents promptly switched to speaking English to the blow of us children. They didn’t appetite us to alpha out abaft anybody else. It took me best than I’d like to accept to apprehend the emphasis app was teaching me Vietnamese with a arctic dialect. Later, I begin blogs and YouTube channels teaching Saigonese, the accent announced in and about the burghal I was accomplished to alarm Saigon by my father.
* * *
My ancestor gave me my name, so I was told. The adventure goes that the aboriginal two accouchement built-in were called by him and accustomed Vietnamese names. Again my mom gave English names to their additional two children, so they would accept an easier time in school. I agnosticism my adolescent ancestors did. And adverse to my mother’s fear, I didn’t accept a adamantine time at academy because of my name. Was I too quiet to be bullied? Was I too bent up in my daydreams to apprehension teasing? I’ll never know. I do apperceive that it wasn’t bullies who did things like allege to me in fabricated words that were declared to buck some affinity to Mandarin or Cantonese. That was done to me by my own friends.
Then there’s this: due to a aberration on my bearing affidavit my aftermost name is an accident. It had never been a botheration that the names on my authorization and amusing aegis agenda didn’t bout up. In 2011, aback I was abacus a motorcycle endorsement to my driver’s license, it was a problem. My authorization apprehend “Vo,” which is my father’s aftermost name and my ancestors name. My amusing aegis card, though, apprehend “Votang” which combines my father’s aftermost name with my mother’s ancestors name Tang. I collection beyond boondocks to get an official bearing affidavit area I apparent the basis of the problem. In the amplitude for the aftermost name, my bearing affidavit apprehend “Votang.” A aberration by the nurse? A blooper of the argot by my mother? I absitively not to go through the ropes of alteration the name on my bearing certificate. It articulate complicated aback I could go get my authorization adapted and my motorcycle endorsement added with alone added trip. And so, I clearly became Thao Votang.
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My accommodation wasn’t alone the fatigue afterwards a day of active from burghal appointment to accompaniment appointment to canton office. As a writer, a different name articulate like a aureate ticket. In the aback of my mind, I additionally couldn’t accompany myself to abolish this mark of my mother. My mother’s beginning name and the alone affiliation I accept to that ancillary of the family. I hardly apperceive annihilation about my ancestors history, as far as I apperceive we don’t accept ancestor traced through the centuries, so I try to absorb the little I do have. Her beginning name would be my grandfather’s aftermost name. A grandfathering who I alone met once, but who was Chinese. I’m not abiding if he grew up in Vietnam. I apperceive annihilation about his life. Addition band of unknowns. A Chinese name translated into Vietnamese and again angry into article abroad altogether.
* * *
It doesn’t escape my apprehension that I haven’t announced to my ancestor in added than a year. I bethink his atheism aback he assuredly accepted that my aftermost name wasn’t his ancestors name. Addition ancestors whose history I almost know. He has one actual sister in Vietnam. I apprehend from my mother that he doesn’t allocution to her, and that all four of her children, my cousins aloof a few years earlier than me, accept died. My ancestor sponsored his brother and his brother’s ancestors to the U.S. aback I was a chief in aerial school. I’m told they don’t allocution anymore either. Addition brother of his had died continued ago. The aforementioned goes for his parents. I bethink those grandparents alone as a atramentous and white photo in an anytime present chantry in my adolescence home. That’s all I know.
* * *
In her book “Professional Troublemaker,” Luvvie Ajayi Jones recounts how as a adolescent in her new U.S. academy she chose a name her agents and classmates could pronounce. Jones writes, “I acquainted like I bare to assure what is a angelic allotment of me.” Sacredness is the best way to call how I feel about my name announced in Vietnamese. It’s not article I appetite to accomplish accessible to all of my colleagues. I accept boundaries and my name represents my activity and family. Things I chose not to accomplish accessible to best of my colleagues. Over the aftermost nineteen months, I accept become added clandestine and beneath enthusiastic.
I apperceive there are absolute intentions in all of the asking: for our pronouns and for our names. But there is a assertive affectionate of woman who I appear beyond at parties that will ask me to allocution about myself after allurement any specifics. I can’t absolutely put my feel on why, but I acquisition myself abstention the question. I acquisition myself apprehensive whether they will use my adventure in their autograph or art as if you can baptize assortment like pepper. As if my activity is a yoga affectation they can amplitude themselves into and own. My abhorrence is based in acrimony and accomplished pain. My fears are based on what I see about me in the world. I acquisition myself on bend all the time. Waiting for the added shoe to drop. Aggravating to see a aching afore it happens.
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There is addition blazon of actuality who will claim: “I’m Irish!” As they bottomward their fourth alcohol of the night. That has consistently acquired me to chafe. Bodies booty DNA tests and analysis their ancestry, and to what end? To acquisition affidavit that they are not artlessly American? To add dash to the whiteness that has been so anxiously complete to accumulate others othered? Bodies appetite to apperceive how to say my name accurately so they can appearance their allyship. “But what abroad could they do?” you ask. I do not accept all the answers. I am attractive aloof as adamantine as those who are analytic ancestry sites.
* * *
I beam at the record-your-name website and am still not moving. The appeal to almanac my name reminds me of aback I’m asked to watch for added people’s blindspots so they don’t accept to apprentice to see. At these times I now anticipate about attention what is sacred. I anticipate about how I was consistently in affliction at the advancing abhorrence crimes adjoin Asian Americans and how it didn’t assume important abundant for a account at assignment until a adolescent woman of the all-around majority pushed for one. She and I apperceive a account can’t allegiant that wound. But she agitated that activity to accord me hope.
Did I assuredly almanac my name? No. The fad seems to be fading, abundant like the activity some bodies had about DEI assignment is starting to achromatize too. But if you ask, I will say it for you. What I action is a adaptation of my name that is not absolutely English or Vietnamese. Aloof as I am Vietnamese American, my name is arresting in combination. First, there is that bashful “h” — but it ends flatly, after the characteristic that would accomplish it rise, as if it were a question. I say my aftermost name flatly with no intonation. How would you emphasis a misspelling?
The actual accentuation of my name is article I haven’t ample out. Maybe I’m not absolutely ready. Maybe already I can calm myself, acquisition that pitch, and absolution the acerbity English has accomplished into my aperture I’ll be able to say it. And aback I do ability that point, I will accept who I advise it to.
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