From: baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur)
Subject: Re: "Asians changing names to help job prospects"
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 18:22:35 GMT


Forwarded from s.c.a.a. 

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In article <MDAY.92Oct4121039@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu> mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day) writes:
>
>
>From The Independent (London), August 31 1992:
>
>"Asians changing names to help job prospects"
>
>by Haydn Price
>
>Unemployed Asians in the Midlands [an area of Britain] are changing
>their names to make prospective employers believe they are white.
>
>The young Asians, who fear that they will not be interviewed by racist
>employers, are changing their traditional Asian names such as
>Davinder, Charanjit and Surinder to the "white-sounding" David,
>Charlie, and Sara.
>
>Balvinder Singh, of the Birmingham Council of Sikh Gurdwaras, an
>organisation which works closely with Indian teenagers, said: "Some
>personnel managers don' want Asians and would prefer to employ whites
>and so young Asians are now modifying their names accordingly."
>
>Mr. Singh, who is known by his work colleagues as Billy, added: "The
>first stage of discrimination is the application form and these young
>Asians are desperate enough to change their names in order to obtain
>an interview."
>
>One Asian who amended his name is Shamash Dean Choudhry, now a
>financial consultant.  He was "advised to drop Choudhry as a surname
>when applying for a post with a large car dealership."
>
>Mr. Choudhry admits that on his application form he "pretended to be
>Irish" by calling himself Seamus Dean.  "It worked and I got an
>interview and ended up working there," he said.
>
>Research by the Policy Studies Institute shows that one-third of all
>employers surveyed rejected applications on the basis of name alone.
>
>During the research, a number of employers were sent two identical
>forms, one with an English-sounding name and the other without.  It
>was found that many employers only offered interviews to the applicant
>with an English-sounding name.
>
>Mr. Singh believes that if Asian unemployment continues to rise the
>practices will continue.  Figures from the Department of Employment
>show that "25 per cent of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi community and
>11 per cent of those of Indian background were unemployed."  This
>compares with 9 per cent of the white community.
>
>The department's Employment Gazette said: "People of ethnic minority
>origin were more likely to be unemployed than whites from the same age
>and sex groups.  The highest unemployment was among the Pakistani,
>Bangladeshi, and West Indian community."
>
>However, not all Asians approve of changing names.  Mukesh Murria,
>chairman of the Birmingham Institute of Asian Businesses, dismisses
>the practice as "immature."
>
>"For economic betterment, those who amend their names are misleading
>the community and disgracing their countrymen... even if they get the
>job they will never regain the respect of the employer because they
>have already tried to mislead him."
>
>He argued that Asians should "stand firm and try to prove to their own
>community that they are of worth, and that then [sic] will be able to
>prove to others that they are worthy of employment."
>
>Mr. Murria's views are shared by the Commission for Racial Equality.
>
>A commission spokeswoman said that, "although we know employers do
>discriminate against ethnic minority applicants, to change one's name
>is, in effect, to collude with discriminatory practices and we would
>be against it."
>
>[End of article]


-- 
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Satyen Baindur  (baindur@eta.pha.jhu.edu)
Physics and Astronomy
Johns Hopkins University
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian