Asian Americans Need Simpler Names?
From Boing Boing:
Greeted with the news that some Americans of Chinese descent were turned away from the polls because the names on their ID didn’t match with the incompetently assembled voter lists, Texas State Rep. Betty Brown (R) has proposed that they should change their names so that “Americans” can manage them better. (Um, if these people aren’t also “Americans” then why do they get to vote?)
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.
Name consistency would be a more effective solution. Pick one name and stick with it. Forcing people to simplify their names is just making a bad situation worse.
[Video from YouTube]
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Oh, get over it – I changed my name when I left my European country of birth – hopelessly difficult for anyone to spell and pronounce.
I picked a short Japanese last name when I got married – so the two of us would have an easy-to-use last name. Obviously I picked a name that’s easy to use in just about any language.
Chinese, but especially Thai (!) and also Indian last names can be horribly difficult to remember. Koreans suffer from too many people with the same (albeit short and easy to spell) last name – thus many Koreans use two letter abbreviations as “nick names” – e.g. H.S. Kim instead of Hyun Sook Kim.
Not everything with the Ellis Island approach to “correcting” names was bad.