Many of my students at South High School were refugee kids from southeast Asia –Vietnam, Laos, Thailand–and I studied how to pronounce their names. I remember the astonished look on one girl’s face the first day of school during roll call: You said my name right!
Later, I taught at an under-the-radar state university where many students were also refugees. At one graduation, a faculty member mispronounced virtually all the names of the graduates as they walked across the stage for their diplomas. He seemed to think it was funny, as if he were somehow cute, mangling their names one after another.
I sat in the audience seething, thinking of the love and hope and care all parents bestow when they name their children. This poem feels like redemption.
Ego-Tripping as Self-defense Mechanism for Refugee Kids Who Got Their Names Clowned On, by Bao Phi
My given name, Thiên-bảo, translates to
treasure from heaven.
An immediate reason for my being indecipherable
the moment it stung
unfamiliar tongue
so soon after “hello.”
I would finally like to thank my parents for what I once thought of
as an unpronounceable curse
that I’d have loved to bleach—
because everyone who has ever addressed me from bullies to crushes to haters
has had no choice
but to call me
valuable.
Click here for more information about the wondrous poet, picture book writer, and spoken word artist Bao Phi.
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Alison McGhee 