And I Want to Know Your Name...

(Yeah, yeah, I know, I didn't keep up with the blogging in Lent...Oh well...)

I hope no one mistakes--I am excited to get married! For all I complain about it, I really am! But, as anyone who's ever planned a wedding well knows, there's a lot of bullshit that goes along with it. While this is perhaps a little more important than bullshit, I just wanted to point out that just because there's a lot of complaining going on doesn't mean that I'm not looking forward to getting married.

Anyway, what's currently on my mind is an issue that I'm sure know my fiancé decided, taken care of, and moved on from, but guess what? Not quite. You guessed it--I'm still hung up about my last name. After a few tearful arguments, I agreed to change it, but just keep my own last name as my professional name. He just really believes that couples should have a family name, and--whether he wants to admit it or not--it's honestly both a pride thing and the fact that he's pretty traditional. Fine. So I agreed to it because growing up it never even crossed my mind not to change my last name. So I thought that maybe that would eventually trump the fact that it's something I'm considering now, especially because clearly not changing my name would bother him a lot more than it would seem to bother me to change it.

But now I'm not so sure.

I think part of it is that I'm still not sure he completely understands why I would want to keep my last name. I know, I know that a rose by any other name is still as sweet; I know that my entire identity--racial, ethnic, or otherwise--is tied up in so much more than just my last name, and nothing can change who I am or what I define myself as unless I let it. I know all this--intellectually, anyway. But damnit, my entire life, whether I like it or not, whether I acknowledge it or not, whether he believes it or not, I have been defined by my race, and my race has been largely identified by my last name! It doesn't feel like I'm just leaving behind a last name--it feels like I'm losing my identity. It feels like I'm, I don't know, giving up, or giving in, or assimilating, or somehow saying that I'm 14 years old again and I resent being Asian, so I want to hide it away by a European last name, and I don't like this feeling.

I like even less that I can't seem to explain this adequately to my fiancé, or to any of my other close white friends, for that matter. It's not for a lack of trying. But it just doesn't seem to get through. I wonder if it's just the disconnect of people who are not in touch with their own racial or ethnic histories--that is, where those factors never mattered much in their lives--really being unable to understand the magnitude of how important it can be in other people's. It's like in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time: It's impossible to explain sight to the blind. I mean, GOD, I know that the moment anyone sees me they'll realize I'm Asian...But why can't people seem to understand that IT FEELS WEIRD to think that people won't expect an Asian person, say, at the doctor's office or something under a new last name?

I know that in so many ways this shouldn't matter, but in so many other ways it really does matter! And it just makes me angry! The last time we talked about this, he asked, "Why does it have to be the last name?" Well, for fuck's sake, why don't you change your name to mine if all that matters is that we have the same last name?? I held back from asking him that at the time, but now I want to know what the answer would be. I can guarantee you the answer would be no, and while the initial answer might be because it goes against social custom, what it will ultimately boil down to is that it would be weird. Is it just a matter of pride? DAMN STRAIGHT, IT IS. Yes, I would be proud for the world to know that I am your wife, and I plan to scream it from the rooftops, but I am also proud of being a strong, successful Asian woman, and it's hard for me to let go of that when it took me so long to become proud.

I just wish there was a better way to explain.

~The Original Fong~
**You wish you could pull off being me**

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