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Texas lawmaker wants Asian-Americans to have simpler names.

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Asian-Americans say they are outraged that a Texas lawmaker suggested in a hearing that Asian-American voters should adopt names that are "easier for Americans to deal with" at the polls.

Texas Rep. Betty Brown, a Republican, made the comments on Tuesday as Ramey Ko, an associate member of the Organization of Chinese Americans, testified before the Texas House Elections Committee on voter identification legislation.

Ko testified that people of Asian descent frequently have difficulties voting due to differences in their legal transliterated names and the English name shown on their driver's licenses.

Brown asked Ko: "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?"

Brown later said, "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?"

The Texas Democratic Party called on Brown to apologize on Wednesday.

.....

"I think Rep. Brown owes an apology to the entire Asian-American community," Narasaki said. "But more than that, she needs to show that she understands that that's an unacceptable solution. She probably thinks that President Obama should change his last name too."

Jordan Berry, a spokesman for Brown, defended the lawmaker and said her comments were not racially motivated.

"It had nothing to do with race," Berry told FOXNews.com. "What she was talking about was the Chinese name, just transposing it from Chinese to English."

.....

"Representative Brown's comments made clear that she lacks an understanding of Asian American cultures and that she in fact undervalues other cultures," OCA Executive Director George Wu said in a statement issued late Thursday.

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Obviously this woman hasn't had the misfortune of dealing with a Polish last name with one vowel and 8 consonants.
 
If she thinks Chinese names are too complicated, we should show her some Tai or Indian names. She'll have an aneurysm.

Gotta love Texas. :rommie:
 
Ko testified that people of Asian descent frequently have difficulties voting due to differences in their legal transliterated names and the English name shown on their driver's licenses.
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It seems to me that the problem they are trying to address is that there is no standard way of transliterating Chinese names to English. For example, is it "Li" or "Lee"?

This strikes me as a case where the Texas House Elections Committee was trying to address voting problems that Asians have because of their names and Brown suggested what she did as a way to address the problem. I don't think she was presenting a plan to Americanize every Asian-American's name, but just made a suggestion on the spur of the moment. She picked a particularly horrible way to say it, but I think she was suggesting that the Asian-American community settle on some standar way to spell Asian names in English. Unfortunatley for her and fortunately for the media who love a good controversy, she picked a particularly poor way to say it. Then, those from the other side of the political spectrum took it and ran with it to make political hay.
 
farmkid said:
Ko testified that people of Asian descent frequently have difficulties voting due to differences in their legal transliterated names and the English name shown on their driver's licenses.
Click to expand...
It seems to me that the problem they are trying to address is that there is no standard way of transliterating Chinese names to English. For example, is it "Li" or "Lee"?

This strikes me as a case where the Texas House Elections Committee was trying to address voting problems that Asians have because of their names and Brown suggested what she did as a way to address the problem. I don't think she was presenting a plan to Americanize every Asian-American's name, but just made a suggestion on the spur of the moment. She picked a particularly horrible way to say it, but I think she was suggesting that the Asian-American community settle on some standar way to spell Asian names in English. Unfortunatley for her and fortunately for the media who love a good controversy, she picked a particularly poor way to say it. Then, those from the other side of the political spectrum took it and ran with it to make political hay.
Click to expand...
:vulcan: First time I've heard of this. And I try to keep up with all the news and hot button topics in my state!
 
Don't we alreayd have enough stupid lawmakers? Hell, why stop there? Might as well make black people name their kids "Sally" or "Anita" istead of "Shaniqua" or some such.
 
Shes an idiot. Perhaps what should be done on the part of the government is to do a little research and use the pinyin standard when translating the names from Chinese characters into English. Most Chinese names are insanely simple to write in English, being one or two syllables for the most part.
 
Texas really doesn't help the stereotype that they're a bunch of bible thumping backwards hicks with crap like this.
 
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this already happen? Chinese and Japanese names are already 'translated' in many cases. In both countries, doesn't the family name always go first? Yet when we hear such names mentioned over here, they're inverted, with the family name last, as an American name would be.

For example: Chien-Ming Wang, of the NY Yankees. IIRC, his name as it would be written in his native country would be Wang Chien-Ming. Yet nobody ever calls him that over here. Same for Ichiro Suzuki, of the Mariners: In Japan, he would be called Suzuki Ichiro. Right?
 
It might've helped matters if whoever developed the various original transliteration "standards" hadn't picked such arbitrary letter combinations to represent various foreign syllables.

Example: Nguyen is pronounced "Wenn". Why not spell it that way when Romanized? Where does the Ngu come from? Fortunately someone informed me of the proper pronunciation before I ever had a chance to insult someone by pronouncing it the way it's spelled, "nuh-goo-yen". :rolleyes:

In recent history I had to record donations from individuals on a weekly basis, many of whom were of Asian descent. It was frustrating for me when they would spell their names inconsistently from week to week, sometimes using their maiden name, sometimes their current name, sometimes surname first, other times surname last...I kept having to check their addresses to ensure the records were accurate. :(

But I do agree, legislating that people adopt a more "American" name to conform, takes something away both from their freedom and their cultural heritage. As a libertarian (small L there), I believe governments should have as little involvement in peoples' lives as possible, and concentrate on real issues instead.
 
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