April 12, 2009

• Perpetual Foreigners

  It's been kind of quiet lately. 
  
  So did you hear about Texas representative Betty Brown?   Ramey Ko who is a member of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) testified before the House Elections Committee on voter identification legislation last week. Brown apparently is one of the committee members.  Ko testified that Asian voters are having a difficult time voting since their legal transliterated names and the English name on their driver's licenses are different.  
  
  So, what was Betty Brown's response? "Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese - I understand it's a rather difficult language --do you think it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?  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?"  If you check out this YouTube video, she makes other comments that are just as ignorant. 
  
  The comments she makes throughout this exchange were quite insensitive which has angered many Asian Americans.  However, I can see both sides.  Yes, what she said was unacceptable.  She should definitely apologize for making these offensive comments. I also agree that she should definitely acknowledge that changing names is not a solution.  At the same time, she is ignorant.  Clearly, she did not know she was being offensive, and I honestly believe that she would not say those comments if she knew they would be offensive.  She definitely didn't understand what transliteration means either.  Apparently, she apologized to Ko shortly after the hearing, although this couldn't be confirmed.  However, if she did apologize, I'm pretty sure it's only because people told her that what she said was inappropriate and disrespectful.  She did eventually apologize publicly with a prepared statement though.
  
  Brown's spokesman, Jordan Berry, stated that her comments were not racially motivated and that Democrats are just looking for an issue and taking Brown's comment out of context.  Are you kidding me? It's sad that Brown's first inclination after hearing that there were issues with voting was to ask fellow Americans to change their names so it can be easier for people to understand.  Of course it's going to be an issue when you have a representative sitting there saying that American citizens should adopt easier names.  I would not want her representing me.  She is a clear example of how people including some who represent us and run our governments still believe that people who are Asian Americans are foreigners.
   
  Will I always be a perpetual foreigner? Even though we live in a country of immigrants and descendants of immigrants, Asian Americans are still treated like they don't belong in their own country.  To this day I still get the question, "Where are you from?" I used to say Boston, MA, but then I would get, "No, but where are you really from?" I've become so used to this question that now I have a default answer, "I was born and raised in Boston, MA, but my parents are from China."  Unfortunately, this question satisfies the person who is asking and me.  There's just so much work to be done.  How much more do we need to do to show the American people that we are also Americans?  When I hear or see things like this happen, it makes me think that I am not doing enough.

  • 11:54 am
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