Kurup and Lowe 5/11 Journal - Leigh Bagood

In Assimilation, the scene “My Father’s Name Is…” reminded me of some personal experiences I’ve had with names. I haven’t had many issues with my own name except for the fact that in elementary and middle school, people would comment about how weird and uncommon it was, and mispronounce it as if it was actually that difficult to pronounce. But I especially thought of some of my friend’s stories in which they felt they actually had to change their names in order to “assimilate” into American culture at school. Many of the people I knew at my high school had changed their original names, whether it be Chinese, Korean, or Indian, so that they were easier for American people to say, One of my friends even had a counselor suggest to her to change her name which I thought was wrong. It’s crazy how it’s normal for people to have to pronounce difficult  surnames like “Butkowski” or “Schneider” but once someone’s name is as simple as “Jiwon” or “Hau Ping,” it’s so foreign and strange and needs to be rid of. Assimilation should be a two-way street, and all people should be open to changing along with the diversity of the U.S.
Lowe’s article from Immigrant Acts was one of my favorites to read so far this quarter. Her argument about the grouping “Asian American” not being a static category but an important political one is one that I really agreed with. I always found it important to stand in solidarity with other minority groups. Although there are so many nuances within the “Asian American” category and to pigeonhole all Asians into the same box can erase those nuances and perpetuate the majority-minority binary that allows White supremacism to persist, completely doing away with it and only stressing differences, Lowe argues, would “jeopardize the hard-earned unity that has been achieved in the last thirty years of Asian American politics.” I think it is possible to have some fluidity in our racial ethnic identities that allows us to flex our differences in origin, class, gender, etc. but at the same time form an alliance based on our struggles against hegemony. As we have learned, culture is dynamic, especially for Asian Americans who consist of people from different generations and origins, and to stick with the dichotomy of nativism-assimilation would weaken our strength against oppressive forces.