![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, yesterday in my AP English class, we had a substitute teacher and had to go through the whole role call rigmarole for the first time since September.
The interesting thing about this is that halfway through roll call, when we got to the Ms, just about, Sean C (he's chill, worked super high-up for a city council campaign, someday I will write a thing about SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL POLITICAL VOLUNTEERS and he will be in it) put his hand up and said:
"Sorry, did you say--" (and here there was a little pause) "Seung Jwan?"
"Yeah," said the teacher.
"Oh, okay," said Sean C, "That's me. That's my name."
And there was this huge laugh, because AP Lit is like, 70% Asian, and we've been there, you know? Maybe not us specifically, but every year at the start of school, the teacher reads out a long list of names, mispronounces the Asian ones, and half the kids with names like Haotian and Ji Hoon and Ge raise their hands sheepishly and inform the teacher that they go by Harold or John or Grace. My legal name's in English, and even my grandparents use it, but I'm still better off than the people in my Chinese class who had to go home and ask their parents to remind them what their Chinese names are when we did the unit on letters
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. If I approached this from a social justice angle, I could probably talk about how problematic the cultural erasure is, but, viscerally and emotionally, I feel this sort of vindication in the death throes of the myth of the perpetual immigrant. Your name is what you are, and what we are is American. Long Duk Dong is dead, and, by the way, he goes by Dave. Etc., etc. And I know intellectually that Yinglun and Seung Jwan are just as American as Aaron and Sean, and yet.
I might change my mind as I get older, but I don't think that, if I ever have a kid, I'll make my sprog go through the whole I-go-by dance, but I'll still give the kid a Chinese name and use it when I am EXTRA MAD or need chores done, because that's just the way things go. My little brother's Aaron at school and Tan Yinglun at home, TAN YING LUUUUN when he's being annoying, and I think that works just fine.
The interesting thing about this is that halfway through roll call, when we got to the Ms, just about, Sean C (he's chill, worked super high-up for a city council campaign, someday I will write a thing about SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL POLITICAL VOLUNTEERS and he will be in it) put his hand up and said:
"Sorry, did you say--" (and here there was a little pause) "Seung Jwan?"
"Yeah," said the teacher.
"Oh, okay," said Sean C, "That's me. That's my name."
And there was this huge laugh, because AP Lit is like, 70% Asian, and we've been there, you know? Maybe not us specifically, but every year at the start of school, the teacher reads out a long list of names, mispronounces the Asian ones, and half the kids with names like Haotian and Ji Hoon and Ge raise their hands sheepishly and inform the teacher that they go by Harold or John or Grace. My legal name's in English, and even my grandparents use it, but I'm still better off than the people in my Chinese class who had to go home and ask their parents to remind them what their Chinese names are when we did the unit on letters
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. If I approached this from a social justice angle, I could probably talk about how problematic the cultural erasure is, but, viscerally and emotionally, I feel this sort of vindication in the death throes of the myth of the perpetual immigrant. Your name is what you are, and what we are is American. Long Duk Dong is dead, and, by the way, he goes by Dave. Etc., etc. And I know intellectually that Yinglun and Seung Jwan are just as American as Aaron and Sean, and yet.
I might change my mind as I get older, but I don't think that, if I ever have a kid, I'll make my sprog go through the whole I-go-by dance, but I'll still give the kid a Chinese name and use it when I am EXTRA MAD or need chores done, because that's just the way things go. My little brother's Aaron at school and Tan Yinglun at home, TAN YING LUUUUN when he's being annoying, and I think that works just fine.
