International Law

Texas and Asian Names ? follow up

By Stan

Quick follow up to my post from last week on the sad story of Rep. Betty Brown, who unfortunately was caught in the act of suggesting that Asians change their names (i.e. use English names) when in the U.S. to make the voting process easier.

My comment was that while my preferred policy choice is to let everyone use whatever name they want (in whatever language they want), I don’t think that Brown’s words constitute blatant racism.

Not surprisingly, Brown’s words caught up with her, and she has issued an apology:

A Texas lawmaker under fire for saying that Asian-American voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans” has apologized for her remarks.

State Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell, issued an apology Thursday for the comments made during a House Elections Committee hearing on April 7.

Brown said the remark came during a conversation on the difficulty of translating names and that she was referring to transliteration issues when she asked a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans whether Asian-Americans could adopt names that “we could deal with more readily here.”

Ramey Ko, the representative, had testified that people of Asian descent have problems voting because they sometimes list legal names that had been transliterated in addition to common English names on their driver’s licenses or other identification.

Brown said she was not asking Ko to change his name.

New York City Councilman John C. Liu, who along with the Texas Democratic party had called on Brown to apologize, said in a statement that the apology was “a fair first step,” but didn’t go far enough. Liu said Brown’s comments during the exchange with Ko went beyond the concept of transliteration.

Pretty silly turn of events, but normal for the world of politics. Brown is apparently in favor of voter ID legislation, and her comments are being used against her to push back on that issue.

I don’t like voter ID either, but it’s too bad that she had to apologize for something like this. Why not discuss this name issue? As I mentioned before, I have to use a Chinese name on certain documents and official filings while in China and, the whole characters vs. Romanized script issue aside, I have never felt that I am a victim of racism.

This may be the only time I leap to the defense of a Texas politician accused of racism, so I hope someone is keeping score.

© Stan for China Hearsay, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us

Full post as published by China Hearsay on April 12, 2009 (boomark / email).