Names/Nombres

“I was too afraid we wouldn’t be let in if I corrected the man’s punctuation, but I said our name to myself, opening my mouth wide for the organ blast of a, trilling my tongue for the drumroll of the r, All-vab-rrr-es! How could anyone get Elbures out of that orchestra of sound?”

This opening passage describes Alvarez’s family’s arrival in the United States. Her instinct not to correct the customs agent’s pronunciation of her name suggests The Power Dynamics of Pronunciation and foreshadows that she will have to change some part of herself to fit into her new country. Nevertheless, Alvarez’s pride in her name is apparent. Instead of accepting the agent’s rechristening, she says her name silently to herself, thereby reaffirming her identity.

“I, her namesake, was known as Hoo-lee-tah at home. But at school I was Judy or Judith, and once an English teacher mistook me for Juliet.”

Alvarez is named after her mother, so she goes by a special nickname at home. However, her name becomes almost unrecognizable in the outside world, a change that erases her connection to her mother and her heritage and thus underscores The Connection Between Language and Identity. The English teacher’s mistake is particularly ironic, as Alvarez’s mother will later quote a line from Romeo and Juliet to argue that such mispronunciations are inconsequential.

“It took me a while to get used to my new names. I wondered if I shouldn’t correct my teachers and new friends. But my mother argued that it didn’t matter.”

Alvarez’s mother is eager for her daughter to assimilate into American society and encourages her to accept the way English speakers pronounce her name. She insists that changing her name doesn’t change who Alvarez is. While this in some ways proves true, it glosses over the real loss that comes with distancing herself from her Dominican heritage.