Texas Lawmaker suggests Asians adopt easier names.

pacifickarma

pacifickarma

CAGiversary!
Feedback
32 (100%)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6365320.html

AUSTIN — A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.
Easier for voting?

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

“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.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said Republicans are trying to suppress votes with a partisan identification bill and said Brown “is adding insult to injury with her disrespectful comments.”

Brown spokesman Jordan Berry said Brown was not making a racially motivated comment but was trying to resolve an identification problem.

Berry said Democrats are trying to blow Brown’s comments out of proportion because polls show most voters support requiring identification for voting. Berry said the Democrats are using racial rhetoric to inflame partisan feelings against the bill.

“They want this to just be about race,” Berry said
Click to expand...

Wow, really? My wife is Asian and has a name few "white folks" can pronounce, but no one has ever suggested she change her name to make their life easier!
 
That's fucking idiotic. Maybe put more money into the education system so kids grow up and not be so ignorant like this sad excuse for a public servant. I'm seriously amazed at how so many people have issues pronouncing non-traditional names, let alone properly identifying where you're from.

I'm not expecting anyone to be able to say what region of China or Cambodia someone is from, but I've run across my fair share of folk who think black hair and funny name means you're Chinese. Kids grow up and call you Chinese or something and think it's funny.

She's probably the type who goes overseas and gets pissed off because other people don't speak English.
 
Sounds like she needs more tact rather than anything else. OK, maybe a smack (or two) upside the head.

That and, having dealt with many, many volunteers at polling locations, they usually have far greater problems with the intricacies and complexities of the absolutely unheard of system of "alphabetical order." Let's master that sticky wicket before we try and worry about the difficulties of asking people something akin to "I'm sorry, I can't seem to find your name on the sheet. Perhaps it is under a different first or last name?"
 
I bet she has a lot of trouble ordering General Tso's chicken.

Besides, people can and will fuck up every name in the damned phonebook. I've found out people generally don't look past the second syllable in ANY names, and then just make shit up the rest of the way. Pretty astounding, really. If your last name is more than four letters long, idiots out there are going to ruin it. Repeatedly. Across all languages, countries, borders, whatever.

Which is a another way of saying that everyone has short attention spans as well as names in ANY culture can be difficult to pronounce to at least someone.

I guess if my name were as boring as "Betty Brown" I'd have a hard time realizing all of that outside my tiny, tiny sphere of relevance to the rest of the world.
 
Aside from her retarded comments, isn't the problem that Asian-Americans are trying to do what she is asking for? There's issues with identification because of a mismatch in names due to Asian-Americans trying to take on names that are supposedly easier for non-Asian-Americans to deal with. And I can't believe she's telling some guy named "Ko" that Chinese names are hard to deal with.

[quote name='Strell']I bet she has a lot of trouble ordering General Tso's chicken.[/QUOTE]I'd totally vote for legislation to standardize the name of this delicious dish. I'm Asian, and even I have trouble ordering it. (It's General Gao's around here.)

[quote name='Strell']Besides, people can and will fuck up every name in the damned phonebook. I've found out people generally don't look past the second syllable in ANY names, and then just make shit up the rest of the way. Pretty astounding, really. If your last name is more than four letters long, idiots out there are going to ruin it. Repeatedly. Across all languages, countries, borders, whatever.[/QUOTE]Quoted for fucking truth.
 
Perhaps she hasn't noticed but large numbers of Asians already DO adopt Western names for a variety of reasons. It can make it easier to do business with Western clients and simplify social interactions. For wouldbe celibrities it can be a vital choice. SAG members often adopt a stage name or emphasize their middle initial or some other tactic because some other union member is already operating under the name they've had all their life. Thus Michael J. Fox as opposed to just Michael Fox. (The singer who works as Katy Perry is really Kate Hudson but uses the nickname combined with her mother's maiden name to avoid being confused with the actress of the same name.)

It can be a lot harder for someone trying to break into showbiz in a culture where seemingly half the kids in your graduating class were named the equivalent of John Smith. Chow Yun Fat is one of the few well-known HK stars who hasn't done this to become more globally marketable but his name lends itself to easy comprehension by western readers.

Sometimes this doesn't work as intended when too small a pool of names is used. I once saw a action movie that had no fewer than four actresses all going by the name Maggie playing the main characters. There was a token Anita to break things up. It was like the Monty Python sketch.

"Anita? That sounds confusing. Is it alright if we just call you Maggie?"
 
Deport her ass to China and change her name to Chen Hu Lin, so it's easier for us Chinese people to deal with.
 
It came from Texas, so I'm not surprised. I suspect if they had their way, everyone would be forced to change their name to something with no more than 5 letters per word.

~HotShotX
 
Well, I'm Asian and a Liebowitz.
"I changed my name when I came to this country. There was much prejudice against the Chinese people. But who doesn't love a Jew"
 
Asian names aren't really that hard to pronounce compared to other ethnic surnames. Have you seen a Polish last name? It's 15 consonants with one vowel throw in the middle. How the hell do you pronounce "Szczypek"? I propose all Eastern Europeans adopt easier to pronounce names for my personal convenience.
 
The only thing dumber than her comments is the fact that they're trying to defend her for being culturally insensitive while simultaneously contradicting herself.

[quote name='Strell']I bet she has a lot of trouble ordering General Tso's chicken.

Besides, people can and will fuck up every name in the damned phonebook. I've found out people generally don't look past the second syllable in ANY names, and then just make shit up the rest of the way. Pretty astounding, really. If your last name is more than four letters long, idiots out there are going to ruin it. Repeatedly. Across all languages, countries, borders, whatever.

Which is a another way of saying that everyone has short attention spans as well as names in ANY culture can be difficult to pronounce to at least someone.

I guess if my name were as boring as "Betty Brown" I'd have a hard time realizing all of that outside my tiny, tiny sphere of relevance to the rest of the world.[/quote]

Couldn't have said it better, Strell. I don't think my last name is hard to pronounce at all, but it gets fucked at least once a month.
 
my last name is 5 characters long, not hard, follows all the rules of american pronouncation, it's even a Town or two in this country, and elserwhere, famous in the bible, yet every telemarketer, every government agent fucks it up, and even can't spell it right when I sound out the letters to them.

People need to stop catering to the stupid.. they are bringing everyone down, it will ruin humanity.
 
I think it's good for asians to keep their birth name and they shouldn't have to change it to "susan" or any other name just to make it easier for americans. Some of my Korean students have their birth names, but of course they go by other names like Grace. Ok...
 
[quote name='Strell']I don't believe you. "DQT" is pretty hard to pronounce.[/QUOTE]

"Luh-SH-awn-dray."

[quote name='epobirs']Perhaps she hasn't noticed but large numbers of Asians already DO adopt Western names for a variety of reasons.[/QUOTE]

I had a student introduce himself to me after a class a bit back (early in the term). He asked for a copy of the syllabus...(omitting the boring stuff)...I asked his name. He says "Chris."

As I look at the class roster (couple hundred people since I'm not a professor but a grade factory), there are no Chrises and at least a dozen male students with Chinese names. Luckily, I was able to select him from his photo. But if I didn't have that, then by gum, I'd be fucked. Or, rather, "Chris" would be since he wouldn't get his syllabus via email.

On one hand, I understand, since many of us are self-centered ethnocentric fuckholes. "Shufang? How do you pronounce that? JEW-PANNNG? SHO-DOWN? HAW-TING-TONG-PING? Y'get it? That's funny, cuz their names are all funny!" might be an exaggeration of a common response. At the same time, I'm not your average blithering idiot; I'm an above average blithering idiot, and if your name is "Xu," just fuckin' say tell me that. I can say that.
 
Reality's Fringe;5736086 said:
I have an Irish last name and people can't even pronounce it. "Mc" is MICK.It's not "Mac"or"Meh-kuh".
Click to expand...

You're going up against years on indoctrination by fast food commercials.

Big Mac, Mac attack, you're really never going to reclaim it.
 
[quote name='dcfox']Asian names aren't really that hard to pronounce compared to other ethnic surnames. Have you seen a Polish last name? It's 15 consonants with one vowel throw in the middle. How the hell do you pronounce "Szczypek"? I propose all Eastern Europeans adopt easier to pronounce names for my personal convenience.
[/quote]

hahaha.. hilarious. i found the article itself rather funny too. i'm asian w/ an unusual name (jervey) but most ppl get it right. one of the exceptions was this hillbilly at college that kept calling me jarvis for a while.
 
[quote name='mykevermin'] At the same time, I'm not your average blithering idiot; I'm an above average blithering idiot, and if your name is "Xu," just fuckin' say tell me that. I can say that.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I've got that too in classes, and not just with Asian students. Also with some African students.

Also see it in my girlfriends family. She just uses a slightly English-ized version of her real first name as it's not that hard. But her brother and sister both use English first names professionally etc.

Her two nephews have English names her brother and her sister-in-law picked out, and Chinese names her parents picked out. Not sure how it is legally--assume the English names are all that's on the US birth certificates and know that's what they'll use when they start school etc.

I don't really have a problem with it, they plan on staying here so I suppose it makes sense for the kids to have English first names since they're Asian-American. I don't think they should have to do so or be encouraged to do so, but have no problem with families choosing to go that route.

But I see no reason for immigrants to change their names, much less to be encouraged by public officials to do so. That's pure ethnocentrism.
 
I know quite a few international students at my school who've adopted English nicknames. I also had a professor that adopted a Chinese name when teaching abroad.
 
At my former company (Japanese Owned) we had quite a few Japanese employees (enough to require a translation department in a small company). Almost all of them, except for the President and VP, adopted an Americanized nickname. Shimazu became "Jimmy", Daikoku became "Doug" et cetera.

I tried to always speak to them with their Japanese names (and the honorific, of course), but most people just accepted and used the nickname.
 
[quote name='dcfox']Asian names aren't really that hard to pronounce compared to other ethnic surnames. Have you seen a Polish last name? It's 15 consonants with one vowel throw in the middle. How the hell do you pronounce "Szczypek"? I propose all Eastern Europeans adopt easier to pronounce names for my personal convenience.
[/QUOTE]

George Carlin: " It's spelled Koznofski and pronounced 'Smith.' They're all silent, never mind."

People manage to break anything they aren't expecting to see, even if it falls within the rules they well know for spoken English. My last name is only six letters and two syllables with no odd letter combos but people struggle with it. Worse, in sending mail they frequently assume it's wrong and change it to what they think it should be. It's worse for my mother because they do to her first name, too.

For the Asian names, the real fault is the 18th Century Brits who decided how this should be written in English and just made up weird stuff for phonemes that didn't need any exotic spelling. It's one thing when you're dealing with a phoneme that has no common equivalent in English and another when you just decide a certain combination of letters looks cool on the page.
 
[quote name='camoor']You're going up against years on indoctrination by fast food commercials.

Big Mac, Mac attack, you're really never going to reclaim it.[/quote]

Maybe, but it's always been the "Big Mac" at Mick-Donalds, none of the ads say, "Mack-Donalds" when it's pronounced. In fact that's one of my biggest pet peeves when people add letters that aren't part of a word, starting with making 'Mc' into 'Mac'. If it was 'Mac' there would be a fucking 'a' there.
 
[quote name='bigdaddy']I adopt that Texas is bombed by some gas that only kills people with an IQ less than 80, aka all Taxans.
[/quote]
Misspelling the name of a "low IQ" group you are making fun of: Epic Fail.

You just lumped yourself in with this guy:
get-a-brain-morans.jpg


GO USA!
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']I think it's good for asians to keep their birth name and they shouldn't have to change it to "susan"...[/QUOTE]

I had to laugh at this. My sis-in-law changed her name from "Serey" to "Susan" because it was too difficult for people to pronounce!
 
Prince John: Such an unusual name, "Latrine." How did your family come by it?
Latrine: We changed it in the 9th century.
Prince John: You mean you changed it TO "Latrine"?
Latrine: Yeah. Used to be "Shithouse."
Prince John: It's a good change. That's a good change!

So maybe it isn't always a bad thing.;)
 
[quote name='pacifickarma']I had to laugh at this. My sis-in-law changed her name from "Serey" to "Susan" because it was too difficult for people to pronounce![/QUOTE]My mom changed her name from "Shwujen" to "Susan". What's goofy is that her Chinese name sounds more like "Susan" than that ridiculous English translation from when she immigrated.
 
My girlfriend was "Xiao", but changed to "Tina". Her sister is "Nhu Quynh", but we just call her "Nu" or "Queenie/Quinn".
 
So I'm the only one who impulsively didn't give a shit just from reading the title?

That guy is the type of person we all shake our heads at and/or laugh at. Anything but take him seriously, really.
 
[quote name='HovaEscobar']So I'm the only one who impulsively didn't give a shit just from reading the title?

That guy is the type of person we all shake our heads at and/or laugh at. Anything but take him seriously, really.[/QUOTE]

It's a woman who proposed this.

I mean we know that online test a few weeks ago showed you as sexist-hostile, but damn dood.
 
:lol:

i laugh at this article. i am Viet American and i can tell you that most of my aunts who were amercanized decided to adopt english names. My aunt Suong adopted the name Susie, My aunt Bea Ngung adopted the name Karen, My aunt Trang took the name Tracy. My aunt Hoa took the name Amber. All generic american names that are easily to pronounce. Only two of the 4 aunts i mentioned actually went and got their name changed legally. we still call them by their Viet aliases but when they are out at work they use their American names. have no clue to why they did this so dont ask. So.....

As you can see, this shit has already been happening. This dumb bitch just hasn't gotten out of the world of Texas to figure that out yet.

EDit: fixed something that didnt make much sense at all.....Thanks Koggit.
 
don't "fit who they are"? what? that's dumb..

if i (white, cajun family) changed my name to Shigeru would that "not fit who i am"?

i don't get it..
 
[quote name='Koggit']don't "fit who they are"? what? that's dumb..

if i (white, cajun family) changed my name to Shigeru would that "not fit who i am"?

i don't get it..[/QUOTE]

sorry ill fix my post....it didnt make much sense to me after proof reading it. I dont know why i wrote that. :whistle2:#
 
I think I get what's going on here. I'm Filipino and have a rare non-hispanic surname. However, aside from some mispronunciations and spending a while on the phone or counter slowly spelling my name, I don't run into any issues myself. My dad having retired and settling our family in Florida, there's not a great deal of Asian people around, so I got to be friends with most of the other Asian kids at school. Many of them had both Americanized names that they went by but also still had original "ethnic" names.

I believe the issue, as stated, is due to mismatches between ID cards and official, legal names. There would be no problems at polls or wherever else if the names on both pieces of paper/plastic match. The problem occurs when a person's legal name is their original "ethnic" name, but for some reason used their adopted Americanized name on their ID card. In most cases, when getting the ID cards, you should enter your legal name but I guess for one reason or another a person may ignore that and decide to use their adopted name, causing a mismatch.

In most cases when you need to present an ID, there's no cross-referencing that needs to be done, but at the polls it becomes an issue. I'm sure when you get pulled over and the police ask for your ID, they can cross-reference you and any names you may have used in the past. They have computers. However, at polls, most times everything is still checked against long printed lists, and the long line makes it a tremendous inconvenience to try to sort out a way to cross-check someone's identity.

The problem isn't that immigrants (or their children) aren't adopting American names, it's that they do but don't legalize it.
 
[quote name='pacifickarma']
Wow, really? My wife is Asian and has a name few "white folks" can pronounce, but no one has ever suggested she change her name to make their life easier![/quote]

Like Nguyen? That's my favorite. Especially Betty Nguyen on CNN. I'd gargle her bathwater.
 
[quote name='batman1939']I think that the problem is the order of the names. When I worked retail I would see a credit card with three names and an id with the same three but different order. As a cashier I didn't give a damn but for a 9-11 buffoon working voter table I can see saying "the names don't match you can't vote."[/QUOTE]

Interesting.

I used to work for a photographer who shoots all the graduation photos for the local university here. It's a large university, with prominent colleges in things like agricultural science, veterinary studies, computer science, and engineering (among others). As such, it attracts a good portion of foreigners into its many nebulous folds.

I did random work for the guy, but the absolutely most abysmal part was getting all of the order forms and trying to sort them out. First you had to do it alphabetically. We were probably dealing with, oh, two thousand or so forms per ceremony, which meant four ceremonies in May and usually two in December. Point being, there were a lot of forms.

Looking up the names was horrible at times. Sometimes people didn't write all their names down, sometimes they were ordered by a second/third/fourth name in the program, sometimes they used names that weren't even in the program, etc etc. It was quite a chore. Then you'd have to make sure you weren't mixing any name up with another, or that it was all spelled correctly, etc etc. Then there were obstacles like people writing it in cursive, causing deciphering issues. Or they were ordering in one ceremony for a different one, which was just asking for trouble. It was across all nationalities - just a big jumble of stuff to wade through.

It didn't help that seemingly no one who was ordering pictures could write down their correct major - "Supply Chain" is not Industrial Distribution. Even the graduates themselves didn't know more-than-half the time.

I guess what I'm saying is that in some way, I could see where this woman was coming from. She just phrased it in a horrible manner, except a lot more so. A lot more so.

Side note: Names are a fascinating thing. You'd run across such a huge variety in those commencements, that at some point you were sure enough that you'd filled that particular piece of knowledge to capacity long ago. And then some fucker comes around with a combination of phonemes and letters that made your head spin.
 
I think it behooves her to lick a fork and stick in in an electrical outlet, but it'll never happen.

She actually said behoove?

Say, wouldn't it be easier if all foreigners spoke perfect English and had no thick accents? And how could everyone not want to change themselves to make American lives easier?

Either she's a racist, or a moron. Either way, somebody recall/impeach her.

And we all know if she were a Dem, the Repub's would be reacting the same way.
 
Hey, look! The full context shows that it's still racist, but less of the smarmy asshole racism, and more of the "I'm a buffoon" benevolent racism.
 
That's it.

I'm changing my name to !Xobile.
[quote name='jarvis307']hahaha.. hilarious. i found the article itself rather funny too. i'm asian w/ an unusual name (jervey) but most ppl get it right. one of the exceptions was this hillbilly at college that kept calling me jarvis for a while.[/quote]
Well, that explains that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top