How I Was Discriminated Against Because of My Foreign Name Throughout My Life
By: Quy Ma
Tags: Culture, Immigration, Equality, Identity, Racism

How I Was Discriminated Against Because of My Foreign Name Throughout My Life

I wished I had a Westernized Anglo name my entire life — until now

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

My name is Quy Ma. I was born in the United States and have lived here my entire life. To many here in the states, my name is foreign-sounding.

My name is of Vietnamese and Chinese origin. My parents independently fled Communist Vietnam to the United States in the 1980s before meeting each other, getting married, and having me. I’ve never stepped foot in Vietnam (at least, not yet).

Before you ask me, I’m not totally sure what my name means. I forgot how to speak my native tongue, Vietnamese, as I grew older. According to my dad, Quy means “serene” (I definitely am not a reflection of my name in real life).

Though if you google “ma quy”, my name in reverse order, and click on images, you’ll get some interesting pictures of the scary spirit ghost Asians from the movie, The Grudge.

Apparently, the phrase, “ma quy”, means “devil, ghost, or demon” when you translate it to English. Great. Either my parents had a sick sense of humor or they wanted to curse me for life.

In case you were wondering, my name is pronounced kwee like how it’s pronounced in the word “soliloquy” and ma, the alternative word to mother.

At least, that’s how I tell native English speakers that’s how you pronounce it. In Vietnamese, it’s actually wee, rhymes-with-see, ma, soft A like in the word “apple”. I had to anglicize and simplify my own already foreign-sounding name to make it more pronounceable for others as a child.

The anglicization of names, or as Wikipedia describes it, “the change of non-English language person names to spellings nearer English sounds, or substitution of equivalent or similar English personal names” is a common practice among immigrants and children of immigrants.

Many Asians who reside in Western countries (or even East Asian countries that deal business with the West) adopt anglicized or entirely new Western names to assimilate into their new countries frictionlessly. It’s just easier to introduce themselves that way to most Westerners, most had figured.

My parents themselves adopted new names, David and Amy, when they arrived in the US. They only use their Vietnamese birth names privately among family. If friends ever asked what my parents’ names were, I’d tell them my parents’ adopted names.

However, my parents never talked to me about adopting my own English-friendly name. I never knew that was a “thing”. By the time I committed many years to school and realized I had the autonomy to adopt a name, I had made many friends who knew me as Quy.

The thought of showing up one day at school and telling my friends, “Hey, don’t call me Quy anymore, guys. My name is John!” made me cringe inside. How would I even pull that off and explain that?

I have two younger brothers. To add fuel to the fire, my youngest brother was given an American name, Tommy. When my friends asked why my name and my middle brother’s name were so weird compared to my youngest brother, I would laugh it off and joke, “Oh yeah, my parents learned English by the time they had my youngest brother.”

My friends always laughed back in return, clearly amazed by my self-deprecating wittiness.