February 4, 2007

UNLIKE EUROPE, WE HAVE A CULTURE FOR THEM TO ASSIMILATE INTO:

Welcome Candy, Sam, & George: Immigrants change countries, and their names (Yvonne Abraham, February 4, 2007, The Boston Globe)

They entered ornate, flag-filled halls, ready to swear their first oaths of allegiance: Jiong Ping Huang from China; Mohammad Hussam Sawar from Syria; Dung Thanh Ho from Vietnam; and Gjergji Cani from Albania.

They emerged after moving ceremonies, bearing proof of their new US citizenship, smiles, and something else. Jiong Ping was now Candy. Mohammad became Sam. Dung was now Brandy. Gjergji became George.

"I adjusted to my new environment," said Cani, a Medford accounts coordinator who immigrated to the United States with his family five years ago. "Here, diversity is the norm, but you have to adapt yourself in this new culture."

The roiling national debate over immigration has been largely driven by questions of how waves of new arrivals are remaking American society.

But the urge to assimilate in the most conspicuous way -- changing one's name -- remains surprisingly strong in this era of cultural diversity.


An awful lot of ignorance goes into that surprise.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2007 9:32 AM
Comments

Link above takes you to the superbowl post. Here's the link to the Boston Globe

Posted by: erp at February 4, 2007 10:23 AM

Did you see the press release from last year where the Lousiana Dems made a big deal of refering to the GOP candidate as Pyush Jindal? Which while it may be the name he was given, is stupid on so many levels it's hard to believe.

(The Chinese, Taiwanese and Koreans I've worked with over the years have been big on this sort of thing. Often the name change accompanies conversion to Christianity, too. At least that's what Brian Jiang said. And in parts of India, it's traditional to have only one name, so when you emigrate here, you get to pick the second one. Best to use somehting simple like "Raj" to go with the other one with 6 syllables and lots of weirdly juxtaposed consonants.)

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at February 4, 2007 1:32 PM

Well, Dung had more reason to change his than others.

Posted by: RC at February 4, 2007 1:41 PM

Ignorance and the Globe...like pork chops and apple sauce.

Posted by: Bartman at February 5, 2007 9:26 AM

I am always amused when I run into an Indian or Pakistani colleague who has taken the American name of 'Joe' or 'Jerry' or 'John' Engineer or Contractor.

Might as well go all the way and be Albert Nucleus or Werner Electron or Enrico Fission.

Just a thought.

Posted by: jim hamlen at February 5, 2007 10:53 AM

Heck, didn't one of your granddads change his name to Jim (from the original Russian name: Piedpiperof)?

Posted by: oj at February 5, 2007 2:34 PM

Russian?! We were a lot of things, but not Russian.

Besides, I hate beets.

Posted by: jim hamlen at February 5, 2007 3:35 PM

English names like, Taylor, Carpenter, Cooper, etc. were originally descriptive of their occupations as well.

Posted by: erp at February 5, 2007 4:02 PM
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