Discrimination Has A Face
April 10, 2009 § 2 Comments
Our AAA president sent us a link to an article this morning about a state representative from Texas, Betty Brown:
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.” […]
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 [a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans]: “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?”
What the freak?!
Asians and Asian-Americans [as well as people of other nationalities] have been changing their names for generations. My legal name was finally changed from 晓京 [Xiao Jing] to Laura during high school, though I had been using my English name since kindergarten. But that was a personal decision [made by my parents, I guess]; it is completely out of line to suggest legislation that would require this type of thing.
Gross. Here is the video of how it went down:
What’s sad is that as usual when dealing with racially insensitive remarks towards Asian-Americans, the perpetrator denies any wrongdoing. What will it take to change people in this country?
auradis 
Dude, Loverly, yeah, it’s not about the name even. She’s asking Asian-American voters to change their names to something that’s easier for ‘Americans’ to deal with–but that doesn’t make any sense! The whole point is that Asian-American voters ARE Americans. If they weren’t Americans, they wouldn’t be allowed to vote and this proposed amendment to the bill wouldn’t even have come up! And certainly Asian-AMERICANS do now find their own names difficult to deal with.
Edit: And certainly Asian-AMERICANS do NOT find their own names difficult to deal with.