Dallas Blog

Yeah, you know, like "Track", "Trig", or "Tripp".

Yeah, I saw this on Fark earlier. I always feel the total opposite, I get sad that people feel like they have to change their names.

No, the issue isn't about a Kai Chi calling himself "Kevin". Here, let me reprint what the post above said because you probably didn't read it.

"The Houston Chronicle has the story: Republican State Rep. Betty Brown, who reps Henderson and Kaufman counties, on Tuesday suggested during a House Elections Committee wingding that Asians might oughta "adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here."

Adopt a name that WE can deal with. It has nothing to do with them using an anglo saxon name instead of their given name. When the people in the crowd "giggled" she tried to save her ass.

What Betty was saying, translated into plain 'merican, goes something like:

"Just because voting is a right does not mean we have to let you people vote. If didn't put that funny name on your driver's license the day you got off the boat then, why; and how important could YOUR rights be NOW, anyway? You people should have thought ahead that we might try to trip you up ten years after the fact. "

"And don't they teach you anything about the Texas Lege in China? We could sure teach those Communists a trick or two"

Stupid redneck bitch...in a couple of generations, your grandchildren will be asked to change their names from John and Joe to Juan and Hose.

Brown is such a hard name to learn. Why doesn't she just call herself Representative Shit.

@TexasRepublicNews: Thinking with brain - Plenty of anglo couples name their sons after the father, grandfather, etc and then call them any number of other names. What exactly is the difference between using an Americanized name and this occurence. I also agree with the poster that clarified that this is not even what the issue is about.

The problem with the multiple names isn't because of carelessness and ambivalence on Asians parts but on lack of attention to detail on bureaucratic levels. It is racist to expect them to change their names because when this occurs in Anglo circumstances we do not expect habit change. My name is a spelled uniquely because my father of German descent was being clever. There are records all over the place with various spellings. That isn't my fault. I have never mispelled my name on a form, so how is this error out there? Human error on some agency's side.

Could I also put it out there that TexasRepulbic News kind of skirted the line of rascism by immediately equating Asian name confusion with criminals?

I have never used my given name. I have been identified by a nickname since birth. My mother, father, uncle, and many more in my family are exactly the same. We have been here in the US for a few hundred years. Everyone family in the US, except for the native Americans, came here as immigrants...maybe we should have asked them how strange our names sounded.

I go to the polls with my voter card or legal ID, if I need to confirm my identity. Shall I drop my nickname to make everyone happy that I am not using an 'alias'?