say my name

Now Playing: Spectrum (Say My Name) by Florence + the Machine (say my name as every colour illuminates, say my name and we will never be afraid again)

It's strange how people are constantly trying to force the Australian identity on me whilst constantly making me feel like an alien in my own home.

How, you say? By passive racism. Racism that isn't counted as racism, but is nonetheless still behaviour that is a reaction to my ethnicity.

Conversations like this:

'So, where are you from?'
'Australia'
'No, where are you really from?'
'Australia'
'Like...where were you born?'
'Australia'
'Where do your parents live?'
'Australia'
'Oh my God, you know what I mean...what actually are you?'
'Australian'

Chinese people have been here since the gold rush. There have been Indo-Chinese refugees coming into Australia since the Fall of Saigon and Asian immigration has been open since the time of Hawke and Keating. Most of us, especially most Asians who are my age, are at least second or third generation immigrants - we were born here, we speak the language, and we try so hard to be AUSTRALIAN like EVERYONE TELLS US TO...and then people constantly treat us like aliens.

And then there's the whole language thing. The Career's counsellor randomly told me that I must be 'good at languages' when she looked at my report and saw that I came top in English. It turns out that she just assumed that I spoke a bajillion 'ching chong' languages. I am not 'good at languages'. Nobody would ever say that to the blonde haired, blue eyed girl who gets good marks in English. I'm good at English - maybe because it's my fucking first language? Just maybe? Just, you know...food for thought...

But the part that gets me the most is my name. Everyone's constantly asking what my REAL name is, what my NORMAL name is. Does anyone know how unbelievably racist that is?

Part of assimilation is rejecting your ethnic origins and getting a 'normal' name to conform to Anglo-Australian tradition. I've had to constantly endure ridicule, deliberately atrocious mispronunciations (it's only five letters long. It's not that bloody hard), and having to explain 'what my name means' and 'why I don't have a normal one'. When you consider how complicated the pronunciations and spellings of 'normal' names are and how nobody has to ask how to spell Michelle or whatever, you realize just how racially charged this ignorance is. Why is my name 'strange' and her name 'pretty'? Because her name doesn't remind people that we don't live in the 'white working man's dream' anymore, and if we didn't have immigrants in Australia we'd be fucked. People don't like being reminded of the lost Australian dream.

It is humiliating to have to spell your name out over and over and over, to have people constantly mispronounce it, for people to say 'are you sure it's not [insert 'normal' name here]'. No. I know what my name is, thank you very fucking much. I don't need a stranger to 'correct me'. Whenever I order a coffee or something I always give a fake name - normally Jenny - because I'm sick of people mispronouncing it. Even if I give the 'normal' Anglicization of my name people still fuck it up.

My name is very normal in Korea. Everyone in Korea tells me what a pretty name I have. It's only when I got back to Korea and I realized how easily my name rolled off the tongue there, how people could spell my name without me having to repeat it five thousand times...that my name is nothing to be ashamed of. The Anglicization of my name, I admit, is slightly fucked up, but my name in itself...there's nothing wrong with it. It has a beautiful meaning and I think it sounds rather nice. But when I was little I had a massive fight with a relief teacher who thought I was mispronouncing the name 'Jessie' - and called me Jessie and wrote Jessie all over my work for that day. When we were little we would put our names against the surnames of all the boys (as you do when you're seven) and apparently my name with every other surname sounded yukky. When I was little all I wanted was a normal name - I thought people might like me more, if I acted normal and looked normal and was called something normal; my obsession with normality later became depression as I got older. I used to dream about changing my name to something 'normal' - but no, I'll keep my name for life. I am proud of who I am and proud of what I am called.