<p>That’s not really a white Anglo-Saxon name.</p>
<p>John Smith would be a much better white anglo saxon name. Good luck with your persona transplant.</p>
<p>When I was applying to law schools just after the Bakke affirmative action case had been decided, I heard some kids grumble about Asians (especially females) taking the places of others who were less qualified because of “affirmative action.” They had NO IDEA about what anyone’s credentials were but ASSUMED that there was discrimination AGAINST white males. Must say those with that attitude come through loud and clear, whether they smiled or not and it was EXTREMELY offensive to many of their classmates of both genders and all races.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I find it hard to imagine that any Jew (or any other immigrant, for that matter!) made a conscious decision to change his or her name upon arriving at Ellis Island. First, they would have had no way of knowing what names would be more “acceptable” and, second, most immigrants were rather attached to both their native cultures and their names!</p>
<p>Names were changed coming through Ellis Island because the xenophobic immigration agents had ZERO interest in correctly transcribing the immigrants’ spoken names. The immigrants’ new names weren’t chosen - they were imposed.</p>
<p>What decisions later generations might have made is another matter entirely.</p>
<p>dodgersmom, the Jews I was speaking of way back in this discussion didn’t have their names changed at Ellis Island; they consciously chose to change their names some years later. My mother had a cousin who changed his name from Bernstein to Bennett, in order to remove the Jewish-ness of his name.</p>
<p>But I digress. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.</p>
<p>And I really wish I were taller, because I believe I would have been more successful and more respected.</p>
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<p>That’s so human and not discrimination. What if you were an adcom?</p>
<p>After reflectiing upon evita’s posts, she(she is a she I gather) has convinced me that she is absolutely correct. The only way this poor girl is ever going to rise above the racist establishment is to change her name. </p>
<p>Evita, have you done enough research to be certain that an Anglo-Saxon name is the best choice for you? I’m just asking, cause, you don’t want to go through all that legal stuff only to find out that something else might have been better, ya know?</p>
<p>But I digress… how about Vivian Pemberly-Worthington? I think anyone with this name and your killer resume would be pretty much set for life.</p>
<p>And if you are a guy, I think a simple “Fabio” would do the trick.</p>
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<p>Actually, this is factually incorrect (and I know my way around genealogical research). The passenger manifests were compiled over in Europe at the time of departure using whatever name the passenger provided in his / her native language. When they arrived at Ellis Island, they were simply checked off the manifesto that was on the ship. Additionally, they had numerous speakers / translators of most languages working at Ellis Island.</p>
<p>The myth that “at Ellis Island they changed our family’s name from Przezescki to Pearl” is simply not true. It would have been Przezescki on the manifesto and the US official would have checked off Przezescki. Many immigrants then chose to go by Pearl, and nothing stopped them, but that’s VERY different from claiming they were assigned a new name.</p>
<p>Carry on.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t occur to you that both 15% and 11% are LOW?</p>
<p>I think some posters here are being unnecessarily dismissive. Asian-Americans (and Asians non-Americans) do get saddled with a lot of unpleasant stereotypes. Wasn’t there a college a few years ago that said it didn’t want a big percentage of Asians in the student body because they were “robotic”? </p>
<p>One of the problems with being labeled “a model minority”–which sounds positive–is that other people may not give an individual credit for their accomplishments because “Oh, all Asians are smart” or “You know what Asian parents are like, they probably pushed that poor kid into getting all A’s.” So instead of getting a reaction like, “WOW, this person graduated Summa Cum Laude, what a go-getter!”, it’s “Wow, this person–oh, they’re Asian. No wonder, all they care about is grades.” Or if they get B’s instead of A’s, that is worse than a white kid getting B’s, because Asians are “supposed to” be impossibly smart.</p>
<p>I don’t find it at all implausible that someone with an Asian-sounding name would get fewer calls than those with a “white sounding” name. It happens with other minorities–I’ve seen studies on black job applicants versus white job applicants before and there was a depressingly sharp contrast in callbacks.</p>
<p>I think the difference between 11% and 15% is pretty shocking. It’s no different than the studies when blacks and whites apply for an apartment or a mortgage and despite identical stats whites get the deal far more often. And I have also seen the studies about black sounding first names. (I think it was discussed in* Freakonomics*.)</p>
<p>I’m a female in what was a traditionally male profession (architect). My first job I was the first female my boss had ever hired. People thought I was the secretary when I answered the phone. Changing gender really wasn’t an option, so I just sucked it up. And yes at least at first we women had to be better than the men. Changing attitudes takes time. No one is surprised to see a woman architect anymore.</p>
<p>If you are really concerned you have two choices that I can see. The first is to see if you can revise the spelling without going through a major name change. The second is to go through the process of legally changing your name. Since women who get married change their last names all the time it should be a pretty straight forward process.</p>
<p>Well, I hadn’t heard that robotic crack attributed to a college. This thread has been asking for proofs, not hearsay.</p>
<p>You can find dumb, narrow-minded people anywhere, whether they are assuming Asians are smart or Blacks and Hispanics got into Ivies with subpar achievements. Or that all White folks do disservice to Asians. </p>
<p>Btw, my head is still around any comparisons to Canada- I don’t even know enough about Canada, its mix of cultures, immigration-related tussles or socioeconomics to do more than assume we are similar enough. If the quoted study had been from England, we could handily come up with all sorts of cracks in a comparison.</p>
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<p>Exactly. So how many things are you (the general you) going to change about yourself to appease dumb, narrow-minded people?</p>
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<p>That’s definitely the tricky question, isn’t it? On the one hand, why should you be ashamed of who you are? On the other hand, it’s often easier to fit in if you change. Some women who immigrate to the US from Africa choose to wear the traditional flowing robes (don’t know the name of them, sorry) that they’ve worn all their lives; others choose to wear “Western” style clothes to fit in.</p>
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<p>Based on 6,000 CVs they are statistically significantly different. On average, it means white people only have to submit 6-7 CVs to get a callback, Asian people (with the same stats, experience, school and qualifications) must submit 9-10.</p>
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<p>We were up in Bangor a few years ago and walked into a restaurant.
Everyone there stared at us for a few minutes - strange feeling that
doesn’t happen very often in the US. We didn’t see a lot of other
asians at UMaine in Orono except for the STEM professors. BTW, this
isn’t evidence to me of racism - people may stare at something that
they’re not used to seeing - I do it myself.</p>
<p>I believe that Maine is the whitest state in the country that sits
next to two states that are in the top 5. San Francisco, on the
other hand, is 48.5% white and 33.3% asian.</p>
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<p>Guilt by association?</p>
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<p>Try this with tech companies in the US or with employers in the Boston
area. My son went through the job search process last year - he had
plenty of interviews.</p>
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<p>You don’t pick up on sarcasm very well.</p>
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<p>England tends to be more of a class-society compared to the US.</p>
<p>evitaperon - did anyone do the logical followup study though?</p>
<p>If you are an Asian whose CV has now been called back because of a Western sounding name - do you get rejected at that point in the process for being Asian? If you do, there’s not much point in changing your name. You’ve just put off being rejected to a later stage of the game.</p>
<p>I also agree with BCEagle - judging from experiences in one of the whitest areas of the US is probably silly.</p>
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<p>I’ve also spent large amounts of time in Baltimore, Richmond and Ames / Des Moines and I get that “what are you chink doing here” stare a lot.</p>
<p>Also, that Maine is the whitest state in the country doesn’t disprove anything, it just exposes the true feelings of whites in their native environment.</p>
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<p>It’s not to appease dumb, narrow-minded people, it’s to appease people with power. Asians may have a high rate of holding professional jobs, but they don’t have power in American society. White people do.</p>
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<p>No, because at that point I can then impress them with how I would be such an asset to them. </p>
<p>I think the CV thing is the most critical, because people have preconceptions associated with names that would be broken if they really met me. Because people reading a CV doesn’t see the applicants’ faces, they are more likely to think “faceless yellow horde”.</p>
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<p>The very concept of “I will change my name, get eyelid surgery, do whatever it takes to be like everyone else” bespeaks a certain mentality – a conformist, non-leader mentality – that isn’t very flattering and isn’t what I want in an employee at all. I daresay that if anything, that’s the stereotypical Asian mentality that gets bandied about on these boards – there’s One Prescribed Path in life (HYPSM; doctor/lawyer/engineer) and that one’s ultimate life goal should be to twist oneself in knots to follow that One Prescribed Path, of which a major important component is Pleasing Everyone Else.</p>
<p>Your name is your name. I get the point that it might be better to be Elizabeth Soong vs Xia Soong, but you are way overthinking the importance of Trying To Be Just Like Everyone Else, which is about as stereotypically-Asian as you could get.</p>
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<p>It all depends on the sample size. In a large sample, more likely to be “significant” (not due to chance). In a small sample, pretty likely meaningless.</p>
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<p>I’ve had many coworkers that have held political office.</p>
<p>In general, their purpose was to serve their communities and secondarily make the town a better place for their kids in school.</p>
<p>I’ve seen the process that they go through to get elected and have also seen all of the crap that they put up with as elected officials. These are volunteers. Do you have any idea of the amount of time that you have to spend as a school board or town council member?</p>
<p>Is it rational to run for elected office? What does it do for your kids? Your family? Your career aspirations? Do you really want a lot of power? What are you going to do with it? Would you want to vote for someone that just wants personal power?</p>
<p>Where are the real power shifts? Where have the jobs gone? Who is buying up energy and mineral resources around the world? Which regions of the world have lower unemployment?</p>
<p>What exactly do you want to do with this power? There are far more white people that feel powerless than all of the Asians in the US. Do they have the power? The type of person that wants to get elected for the power is probably the person that shouldn’t have that power.</p>