Mispronunciation of Names Harms an Individual's Sense of Individuality

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

Staff Writer

With over 7 billion people engaging with approximately 7,000 languages, the world we live in is becoming more diverse. Differences in faith, religion and socioeconomic status create a sense of organic solidarity in which every individual on Earth has a unique role to play. The duty to unite and establish harmony in this pool of heterogeneity comes with an enormous amount of responsibility.

             It is inevitable that, with so much variety, one starts to question their authentic self. Genetic composition, family and names — these three elements help determine one’s personal history and co-constitute one another. The name-giving process has deep roots in culture and self-identity. Unfortunately, with the rise of globalization and this incessant need to create uniformity, we are losing the authenticity of names, especially the proper ways to pronounce them. 

With a myriad of ethnicities worldwide, it is understandable that one cannot attain knowledge of every group and every culture. However, this cannot be used to justify the sheer ignorance that is present while attempting to understand the importance of names. The Namkaran ceremony in Hindu rituals is a symbol of the celebration of birth with the name-giving tradition. Astrological charts are aligned to produce a name so prosperous that it is a gift from God to the child who is about to take their first steps into the world. So when Republican Senator David Perdue intentionally mispronounced Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ name, he didn’t just manage to show to the world how deeply immersed he is in his Anglicized racism — he robbed Harris of her identity. 

By adding the culturally deteriorating phrase, “I don’t know. Whatever,” to get a few cheap laughs from the political rally, Perdue diminished the value of a Namkaran ceremony in which the name given to the child represents the auspicious nature of their arrival and how prosperous their journey and identity will be. 

This particular example from last month echoes the historical Western ideal of accepted names, which we still follow today. What might have started with the wave of colonization and the degradation of people as slaves has slowly transitioned into the 21st century McDonaldization realm in which Starbucks will invariably print “Karen” on my coffee cup. It’s not just the pure laziness of refusing to improve or be receptive that bothers thousands of people, but that this belief of “usual” and “unusual” names is so deeply-rooted in a majority of people that raises concerns. 

Colonization marked the plundering of resources, manpower and even native identity. Pre Emancipation, enslaved Africans were given names by slave owners in the United States that were supposedly easier to pronounce and identified them as slaves. Indian workers pre-independence were given first names recorded in public records to reaffirm their status as people who didn’t even have the right to keep their own names. This transition from mispronouncing given names to completely obliterating them has repercussions in today’s world, too. 

Xiaohui Xu ’24 said, “As a Chinese [person], there is a reason why I use an English name instead of my given Chinese name. I know it’s hard for English speakers to pronounce the Chinese name right since the ‘x’ phonetic doesn’t exist in the English language. For the sake of convenience, I’ve decided that for the school[’s] purposes, I will use ‘Amanda,’ which is my English name.” 

Moreover, not putting effort into accurately pronouncing names is not a problem solely faced on an international level. Saee Chitale ’22 said, “All my life, I’ve struggled with people back at home pronouncing my name improperly. Every time a person has read out a list of people and have paused, it has invariably been my name that has created this confusion.” Sadly, the issue of mispronunciation reinforces the Western idea of “normal” names as the uniform setting that all ethnic groups refer to, regardless of where you are from. 

Often, children of nursery school age in countries like India use names like “Sam” and “Molly” while writing about villagers in their country. While this might seem to be a result of immaturity or even innocence, it is important to acknowledge that this idea of “accepted” names creeps into children’s thinking from an early age. This standard diminishes the stories and even the existence of people who simply don’t operate in the restricted Western world. 

Mount Holyoke College’s implementation of name recordings on Moodle, our primary academic platform, helps tackle the problem of name pronunciation. It allows professors and students the opportunity to respect others by addressing them accurately. While this might be a small step toward shattering the power dynamic that dictates what is or is not accepted, the world needs to become more aware of cultures that go beyond their narrow circle of traditions to fulfill that responsibility of creating harmony. 

Ethical and Sustainable Consumption Will Not Solve Climate Change

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Nina Larbi ’22

Op-Ed Editor

Climate change is the slow apocalypse already underway. The planet has warmed 1 degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, threatening mass extinctions and natural disasters like wildfires and floods. Awareness of the dire situation of the planet has led to increasing environmental consciousness in highly developed countries with a history of mass consumption like the United States. People are sitting down and asking themselves, “How can I reduce my carbon footprint?” beyond just turning the lights and water faucet off when they are not in use. 

In response to the pursuit of a smaller carbon footprint, various “ethical and sustainable” brands have established themselves, making their way to consumers via social media advertisements and targeted articles on lifestyle websites. Despite the clear benefit ethical and sustainable products provide, we cannot buy our way out of a global environmental crisis. Climate change requires both top-down and bottom-up levels of change, and not just with consumer products. 

Overconsumption is directly leading us to impending environmental collapse, whether it be fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gases that warm the planet or consumer goods with externalities. Cheap goods, like $15 t-shirts, exchange a low price tag for poor working conditions and pollution at various points along the supply chain. In this way, both the environment and workers are paying the price for cheap goods. 

In over-consuming countries like the U.S., consumption is built into people’s lifestyles. Gasoline-powered cars, smartphones, toilets that flush down a stupidly large amount of water and the ubiquity of rarely recycled plastic packaging are parts of our lives. This consumption can be reduced by using hybrid or electric cars and energy-efficient light bulbs and buying a toilet that has varying flushing settings. But these modifications are either nominal in their impact or absurdly expensive for most people. 

Regarding lifestyle goods, consumers do have more choice and can pick a sustainable option that is neither incrementalist nor inordinately expensive. Clothes and shoes are the easiest to swap out for sustainable alternatives because they don’t require in-depth research, installation or maintenance, unlike other products. Thus, a crop of “ethical” and “sustainable” brands like Everlane, Ecoalf and Veja have gained popularity, each promising a guilt-free product that neither harms workers nor excessively pollutes the environment. 

Despite the attractiveness of such products, companies are still companies, and they want to sell people products. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing tactic that makes products seem more environmentally friendly than they are; for example, using the color green on packaging and advertising that a product has “natural” qualities despite there being no clear definition of the word. Blue-washing is the formation and heavy advertisement of an agreement to comply with the United Nations Global Compact, a non-binding corporate commitment to sustainability. 

Brands will also proclaim their mission to work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals without any evidence of doing so. There are ways to check companies’ sustainability commitments, but all require synthesizing publicly available data and statements, which are often sparse or nonexistent regarding labor standards and pollution. Popular ethical and sustainable brand Everlane’s data was synthesized by the Australian application Good on You, and they found no evidence that Everlane pays a living wage in its supply chain or makes conscious efforts to reduce textile and water waste.

Ultimately, green consumption is a business-as-usual model with a leaf on it. Even if companies aren’t lying about their commitments to sustainability, feigned sustainability pressures individuals to bear the burden of global environmental destruction through the singular freedom of consumer choice rather than holding large corporations and governments responsible for causing and allowing climate catastrophe. Cultural awareness of sustainability is beneficial, but it does little to remove the problem at its root, which is lax and avoidable environmental and economic policy that permits corporations to completely wring the Earth dry of its resources and mistreat workers. 

Remembering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Lily Reavis ‘21

Editor-In-Chief

As this edition of Mount Holyoke News is released on Sept. 24, 2020, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose at the Supreme Court. Late Friday night, Ginsburg died at age 87 late due to complications from metastatic pancreas cancer. From Ginsburg’s early legal career and through her 27 years as the second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, she was a true champion for women’s and reproductive rights. The last decade of her life was marked by fame, as she became a cultural, legal and liberal feminist icon and her prominence on the Court expanded. 

While Ginsburg’s sharp focus on the advancement of women’s rights was profound and notorious, it is crucial to remember her mixed and, at times, problematic treatment of incarcerated individuals and people of color. Her legacy as a liberal icon will remain — with it, her silence on this year’s Black Lives Matter campaign, her dismissal of Indigenous rights and her disengagement with prison reform. 

Still, a fact remains: Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed the ways of life for American women and LGBTQ+ individuals. She worked tirelessly for 60 years to undo the restraints placed on women in the home, in the workplace and in the courts. In 1972, Ginsburg co-founded the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and quickly convinced the Supreme Court to further consider laws that discriminated on the basis of sex. She pioneered same-sex marriage legislation in the Supreme Court, directly leading to its federal legalization in 2015. As a society now left without Ginsburg’s voice, we must recognize both her failures and her successes, holding in remembrance the rights and achievements she worked to give the American people. 

Ginsburg’s death will inevitably spark a torrid and polarized political debate, as it opened a seat on the Supreme Court just 46 days before the upcoming election. Her dying wish, we are told, was that her replacement would not be selected “until a new president is installed.” As we watch the next few months unfold, Ginsburg’s words regarding gender equality and representation remain. When will there be enough women on the Supreme Court? “When there are nine.”