“But do today’s immigrants seriously thing that they are the FIRST groups to ever encounter people who had a hard time pronouncing their names, or who had questions about their ethnic origins? We are a nation of immigrants.”
Yes, we are a nation of immigrants and previous generations of immigrants were discriminated against as well. However, it’s as wrong now as it was then. Just because it’s not new doesn’t make it okay or not worth addressing now.
“Her name is Valenzuela. I an not going to reveal mine, but I am willing to bet any sum that at the very least 9 out of 10 Americans would have no problem pronouncing her name correctly on the first try”
:-h I’ll take the other side of that bet. Having a family name that gets butchered constantly and is similar in structure in a way, I KNOW how many people can’t pronounce names like that. Things I’ve heard include “Too many vowels I’m just going to call you xxx” making up some shorted one syllable nickname to make it easier for them. One benefit: I makes it easy to screen out nuisance phone calls since they can’t pronounce it correctly.
well, I can think of circumstances where I think it can be perceived that way because of the comments/interactions made during the mispronunciation. I’ve heard them made. So, in some contexts I can understand how people feel that way. I don’t think its a blank yes or a blanket no. It can be situational, as many of these examples are.
Many Americans are terrible at pronouncing words they’re not familiar with. Some examples:
Bruschetta
–> “Ch” is always “k” in Italian, so it’s “broo-SKET-tah”, not “broo-SHET-tuh”. (we also generally pronounce “pistachio” and “maraschino” incorrectly, but… one at a time…)
Habanero
–> In Spanish, “n” and “ñ” are different letters. The first is the regular N and makes the standard n-sound. The second one, topped with the tilde, makes the “nyuh” sound – similar to the “gn” in Italian or “nh” in Portuguese. Anyway, “habanero” is spelled with the regular N – and the spanish H is silent – so it is pronounced “ah-bah-NAIR-oh”, not “ha-bah-NYAIR-oh”. You only make the “nyuh” sound in Spanish when you see the letter “ñ”.
Buena
–> This may just be regional, or even just a state, but a lot of folks in Nashville pronounce it “BYOO-nuh”. Seriously.
My point is, until we learn correct pronunciations, we tend to butcher words we either haven’t heard before, or words from languages we don’t speak. Like the “n vs. ñ” Spanish issue or the “ch=k” Italian issue: most of us don’t know the pronunciation rules of other languages. So unless the person continues mispronouncing someone’s name just to be a jerk, probably there’s no racism involved if they get the name wrong initially; they simply don’t know any better until they are educated.
I just saw a hilarious meme on FB and followed it back to the poster’s main page. The meme was somewhat apropos of this thread, only applied to young children’s Halloween costumes.
FB is tearing it to shreds.
If you want a good laugh, check out the following page:
Re name pronunciations: With extremely common names, I think the lack of effort to learn once and for all how to pronounce the name (or even how to approximate the name) could be reflective of a bit of implicit bias. Not overt racism, not anything earth-shattering, but maybe a little implicit bias. Like it is not important enough for people to learn.
Take the name Nguyen, for example. It is one of the most common surnames in California. I have a close friend with that surname and it does irritate her a bit when people have no idea how to pronounce it. She says it happens all the time. The pronunciation is not obvious from the spelling but it is such a common name here that you do kind of have to wonder why so many people would not bother to learn to pronounce it. I’ve talked to my friend about this and she said to her it feels dismissive of her culture, just a little.
That’s entirely different from someone having difficulty with an uncommon name.
(PS, I’m not talking about learning some hyper-technically correct pronunciation; I just mean the basic, common Americanized pronunciation, like “win” for Nguyen.)
If people can pronounce [the Duke men’s basketball coach](Mike Krzyzewski - Wikipedia)'s name correctly, they can learn to pronounce the names of POCs as well.
“If people can pronounce the Duke men’s basketball coach’s name correctly, they can learn to pronounce the names of POCs as well.” Actually, most people tend to call him coach K,and people who do know how to pronounce it can do so because they have heard it said many times. People can learn to pronounce names, but expecting someone to see a name and pronounce it off the bat is a bit presumptuous when it is difficult. My wife is Hungarian, and traditional Hungarian names are almost impossible for someone to say correctly without knowing the Language ,like Csaba Csere (former editor of Car and Driver magazine), it is pronounced "chub-ah ched-ah). My own name should be relatively easy to pronounce, but it gets butchered at times. Getting upset because someone can’t pronounce your name is idiotic to me (at least the first time), but if they continually do it that is a sign of disrespect. It also depends on where you grow up, someone who grew up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn back in the day would likely have no trouble with Polish surnames, someone who grew up in an area where most of the people were let’s say Irish would have difficulty.
I have heard complaints from some people that people are doing this because they are non white, that this would not have been allowed in the past because immigrants were not people of color and the like, and that is dead wrong. While it may not have been as widespread, immigrants with difficult names, especially from Eastern Europe, did have their names changed at places like Ellis Island, and butchering of names was very common. I remember reading Leonard Bernstein, the conductor, saying that even after he had become relatively famous, people still pronounced his last name “Bernsteen” instead of “Bern-Stine”.
When I have to read the class roster at the beginning of the semester, I always start with “I will now butcher all your names.” which generally elicits some laughter. I then proceed to butcher their names as they try to correct me as best they can or provide me with some shortened version they commonly go by. The African and Arabic names are especially difficult, although there was a Finnish girl with enough vowels for 3 people.
As to Nguyen, one semester I had 2 of them and they seemed to pronounce their names in different ways, which is hardly fair!
I would have thought my married name would be easy enough, since it is pronounced phonetically, but telemarketers are always adding more syllables or pronouncing it so it sounds Japanese.
NO ONE could ever pronounce my Hispanic last name. Who knew I should have been suffering humiliation at the “crippling microagression” and blatant racism implicit in that failure? I feel regret at all those years I wasted just experiencing a momentary frustration rather than stewing in a more meaningful resentment.
Please tell me that you are not insinuating that being unable to pronounce another person’s name is equivalent to discrimination/bigotry?