What’s in a Nombre?

Picture this at a public elementary school in New York City -- it could be any of them. The teacher takes attendance and runs down a list. For the full academic year, this process continues. Born and raised in New York, I attended such a school all my young life. And although my Latino name has just two syllables, my teachers could somehow not get it right and continued to call me Pay-jro for years.

More than a million students are enrolled in the New York City school system, and the overwhelming majority, 41 percent, are Hispanic or Latino. Close to 73 percent of these students are also identified as economically disadvantaged. Why does this matter? It’s the context, and the long history of exploitation and colonization, that matters in this case. When you anglicize a name, you also strip the person of their identity. But given that these children are young and very likely poor, the probability that they will ask their teachers to correct how they pronounce their name is low. In elementary and secondary schools, teachers and administrators operate in loco parentis. As students, we are taught we must respect our elders, and we are not in a position to make such a correction. So for the majority of my adolescence, I just sat quietly while someone mispronounced my name.

What happens, then, when such students -- those like I once was -- go on to college? The National Center for Education Statistics cites Hispanics as the largest minority ethnic group in American colleges and universities. Of the more than 16 million undergraduate students in attendance in 2016, 3.2 million were Hispanics. The City University of New York is one of the country’s largest public education systems, and it, too, has Latinos as the highest enrolled ethnic group -- making up 32 percent of its undergraduate student profile in fall 2019.

So let’s go back: picture this at a college or university in New York City. The professor takes attendance and runs down a list. For the full academic year, this process continues. What happens? The perpetuation of hearing my name being mispronounced as Pay-jro continues, except now I’m older and further along in my education.

What does this do to the construction of identity? By now, I’ve heard my anglicized name, not my real one, called for maybe 12 years. I’ve heard it for so long that I have internalized this incorrect pronunciation and even say my name that way, too.

Key words today in higher education are “race,” “equity,” “diversity,” “inclusion” and “social justice,” among others. Horrific incidents like the murder of George Floyd substantiate the need for educational institutions, government and businesses to pause, assess and make changes in policy and practice that can begin to address structural and institutional racism. Researchers like Daniel Mato refer to the “naturalization of racism” and how “higher education policies and institutions must proactively contribute to the dismantling of all mechanisms that generate racism, sexism, xenophobia and all forms of intolerance and discrimination.”

A key way for higher education institutions to do that, of course, is to hire faculty, staff and administrators who represent the population. While the majority of minority undergraduate students are Latinos, most of the faculty and administrators are not. The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources reported that only 3 percent of Latinos held the position of dean, provost or manager in higher education, and just 7 percent of Blacks held those key positions. Much work must be done here, but at minimum, colleges across the country that are responding to the race, equity and inclusion initiatives must find ways to diversify their institutions’ faculty and administrators.

That said, I’d like to focus more on the “inclusion” aspects of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in this essay. To be included means that one accepts the individual without regard to race, religion, language, gender and so forth. Let’s also throw in a little on the psychological component of what Erik Erikson called “Identity vs. Confusion” in his analysis of people’s stages of development -- a time when young people begin to feel “confused or insecure about themselves and how they fit into society,” writes author and educational consultant Kendra Cherry. “Our personal identity gives each of us an integrated and cohesive sense of self that endures through our lives. Our sense of personal identity is shaped by our experiences and interactions with others, and it is this identity that helps guide our actions, beliefs, and behaviors as we age,” she notes.

What happens when Latinos sit docilely and simply accept that it’s the norm for others to not even truly acknowledge their given names? I would posit that the early levels of confusion begin to occur. Most people probably aren’t intentionally trying to offend or disrespect anyone by what might appear to be an innocuous occurrence. And yet the microaggressive damage has been done.

It took me a few years in college to finally add the accent to my last name. The accent matters because it’s part of my identity. I also began some serious soul-searching in my freshman and junior years because, finally, I could pick classes I was interested in. The Puerto Rican studies courses were real eye-openers for me. They set the stage for a journey that resulted in my work as both professor and administrator in college today. It was fundamentally a journey in search of my own identity, and I found some of it in my name.

A Paradigm Shift for Pronunciation

So how can we make inroads in inclusion? What can and should those of us in higher education do?

To begin, when the pronunciation of someone’s name is not clear, we should just ask them. For more than seven years, I taught in the social science department at Borough of Manhattan Community College. I was one of those professors who went down the roster. At the very onset, I would say, “If I mispronounce your name, let me know.” I might not get it right the first time, but I would definitely keep trying.

As counselor and director of the College Discovery Program at the institution, I would often meet with students individually. I can’t tell you how many Latino students would introduce themselves using their anglicized name. I would ask, “Why do you pronounce your name that way?” Their general response was “That’s how most people say my name.” They’ve accepted and naturalized their given name to acclimate to the general social norms. The next five to 10 minutes of our conversation would then become about identity and the significance of names, as well as pronunciation and the understanding of self in the context of family, culture and identity. While that brief conversation couldn’t undo years of hearing their names mispronounced, it was at least a start.

Higher education is currently undergoing a paradigm shift with regard to gender identity and pronouns. You often see that preference in the signature card of many students, faculty and staff, who might prefer to be called “they, them, theirs” and numerous other pronouns. I would argue that there is a parallel notion to name pronunciation and pronouns as it relates to individuality and inclusion.

Even if Latinos didn’t make up the majority of the enrollment in CUNY, if you subscribe to the fundamental aspects of diversity and inclusion, wouldn’t it seem appropriate to just say my name correctly? Here goes: Pe-droh. And in the vein of paradigm shifts, my signature card includes the phonetic pronunciation, hashtag #myname -- say it right or, at least, try.

Take a minute the next time you call the roster or greet your students, and in the name of inclusion, give them the courage to say their nombre in the way it was intended to be pronounced. This applies to all students of color, from countries all over the world pursuing their academic dreams. Let’s just get it right.