From the Houston Chronicle: “A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are ‘easier for Americans to deal with.'” Representative Betty Brown’s comments to Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans, are as follows:
Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here? … Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?
Whoa. This is wrong on so many levels. One, asking someone to change something so close to their identity as their own name is unreasonable, especially for only potential misunderstanding which is not their fault. And two, even more insidious, is the xenophobia. Hello, Asian-Americans are Americans! Poll workers have to “deal with” names of all kinds. It’s their job. And no, it doesn’t require “everyone here having to learn Chinese.” I don’t know how she thought all this wasn’t offensive.
It reminds Thom and me of a sketch from Goodness Gracious Me:
