What Happens When You Cross the Border? Does Eugenio Become Eugene?

1922 http://www.search.com/reference/German_American

Does your name have to change when you cross the border? If you are born here to immigrant parents, should you be named Ashley instead of Araceli? Is an undocumented college student more likely to be detained if his name is Ricardo, rather than Richard or Rick?

Manuel Munoz writes with a sense of loss about the pressure for people to anglicize their names as they make their way into U.S. culture. At times it does seem awkward to see a Cameron Sanchez (or Diaz?). But the reality is that Latino families have been able to keep their names much better than other ethnic groups entering the country. That is one reason so many nativist Americans are upset....They are saying that Latinos are staying much the same after they become Americans... they don't change their names often enough, they don't speak English enough, they don't watch Oprah enough.

At one level I tell myself, a nation state would naturally want people to homogenize. This leads to increased patriotism, loyalty and a higher rate of military recruitment (so important these days to our gov't). The question really is: Does everyone in the U.S. need to be same? Do we have to become so homogenized?

It could be that Munoz is expecting something that is unrealistic. Culture and language are extremely fluid. Under any circumstances, there is always change. My grandfather who was born and lived on the Texas border with Mexico in the first half of the twentieth century was Eugenio to his parents, Gene to his employers, and Poppy Jujee to his grandchildren. His son, my mother's brother was Jesus Eugenio, who became Uncle Jim to us. The family (at least in their generation) still spoke Spanish all the time, the next generation spoke a little less Spanish, and the latest generation is having to go a Latin American country to learn Spanish. But that happens when you live in a country where the dominant language is English.

My son, whom I named Gregorio Jose, changed his name to Gregory Joseph when he was 16, now that he is 30 he is working hard at learning Spanish, and spends much of his time in a Spanish speaking Latin American country. There are all sorts of ways this fluidity manifests itself.

Munoz can see this as a travesty. But it can also be seen as the normal way cultural practices and languages circulate and evolve. We are always having to let some things go.

Where I must totally agree with Munoz is in how those who do not change their names are often singled out.... are you more likely to be profiled by an ICE agent if your name is Eugenio instead of Eugene? Will teachers give you a better evaluation if you are named John instead of Juan? Questions worth thinking about.



Leave Your Name at the Border
By MANUEL MUÑOZ
Published: August 1, 2007
New York Times

Dinuba, Calif.

..I count on a collective sense of cultural loss to once again swing the names back to our native language. The Mexican gate agent announced Eugenio Reyes, but I never got a chance to see who appeared. I pictured an older man, cowboy hat in hand, but I made the assumption on his name alone, the clash of privileges I imagined between someone de allá and a Mexican woman with a good job in the United States. Would she speak to him in Spanish? Or would she raise her voice to him as if he were hard of hearing?

But who was I to imagine this man being from anywhere, based on his name alone? At a place of arrivals and departures, it sank into me that the currency of our names is a stroke of luck: because mine was not an easy name, it forced me to consider how language would rule me if I allowed it. Yet I discovered that only by leaving. My stepfather must live in the Valley, a place that does not allow that choice, every day. And Eugenio Reyes — I do not know if he was coming or going.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/opinion/01munoz.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1