Names/Nombres

“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.

“By the time I was in high school, I was a popular kid, and it showed in my name.”

As Alvarez enters high school, her nicknames become associated with belonging rather than alienation. Spoken with affection by her new friends, they denote inclusion and group membership and indicate the development of her American identity.

“I was Hoo-lee-tah only to Mami and Papi and uncles and aunts who came over to eat sancocho on Sunday afternoons—old world folk whom I would just as soon go back to where they came from and leave me to pursue whatever mischief I wanted to in America. JUDY ALCATRAZ, the name on the “Wanted” poster would read. Who would ever trace her to me?”

As Alvarez becomes more integrated into mainstream American society, The Desire to Assimilate Versus Staying Connected to One’s Culture emerges as a key conflict. Her Spanish name is relegated exclusively to the domain of her family, and her Dominican and American identities drift further from one another. However, Alvarez frames her American nicknames not so much as a true reflection of who she is as a means of disguising herself and fitting in.

“My older sister had the hardest time getting an American name for herself because Mauricia did not translate into English. Ironically, although she had the most foreign-sounding name, she and I were the Americans in the family. ”

Throughout the text, Alvarez examines the construction of belonging and foreignness in the United States. Alvarez and Mauricia were both born in New York before moving back to the Dominican Republic with their parents. While they are American citizens, however, their names, accents, and complexion invariably cause them to be seen as “foreigners”—an irony that reveals the ethnocentric nature of American identity as practiced.

“My mother was embarrassed among the Sallys and Janes and Georges and Johns to reveal the rich, noisy name of Mauricia, so when her turn came to brag, she gave her baby’s name as Maureen.”

This passage describes the intense pressure that Alvarez’s mother feels to fit into the United States. Her new daughter’s Spanish name makes her feel inferior, and she seeks to improve her social clout by giving her daughter an English name instead.

“‘Why, that’s a beautiful name,’ the new mothers cried. ‘Moor-ee-sha, Moor-ee-sha,’ they cooed into the pink blanket. Moor-ee-sha it was when we returned to the States eleven years later. Sometimes American tongues found even that mispronunciation tough to say and called her Maria or Marsha or Maudy from her nickname Maury.”

Even when complimenting Mauricia’s name, the English-speaking women Alvarez’s mother meets in the hospital fail to say her daughter’s name correctly, and Alvarez’s mother offers no correction. Her daughter’s name becomes something completely different from what she intended, revealing her lack of power over the terms of her identity.

“My little sister, Ana, had the easiest time of all. She was plain Anne—that is, only her name was plain, for she turned out to be the pale, blond ‘American beauty’ in the family. The only Hispanic thing about her was the affectionate nicknames her boyfriends sometimes gave her.”

Ana is able to assimilate easily because of her English-friendly name and her light complexion. She looks and sounds the part of an “American” more than the other members of her family, making her Hispanic heritage something endearing rather than threatening to the dominant culture.

“‘Can I speak to Ana?' I asked, pronouncing her name the American way. 

‘Ana?’ The man’s voice hesitated. ‘Oh! You must mean Ah-nah!’”

This passage illustrates how the dominant culture retains power even when Alvarez and her family’s names are pronounced correctly. After years in the US, Alvarez is accustomed to saying her sister’s name with an American accent and is surprised when her sister’s English-speaking roommate corrects her pronunciation. While “Ah-nah” is the Spanish pronunciation of her sister’s name, there is still no consideration of how Alvarez and her family self-identify.

“My initial desire to be known by my correct Dominican name faded. I just wanted to be Judy and merge with the Sallys and the Janes in my class.”

When Alvarez arrived in the United States, she was proud of her Dominican name and eager to correct those who pronounced it incorrectly. However, as she begins to see how her name marks her as different from her classmates, her pride fades, and fitting in becomes her primary focus.

“I suffered most whenever my extended family attended school occasions. For my graduation, they all came, the whole noisy foreign-looking lot of fat aunts in their dark mourning dresses and hair nets, uncles with full, droopy mustaches and baby-blue or salmon-colored suits and white pointy shoes and fedora hats, the many little cousins who snuck in without tickets.”

Despite Alvarez’s desire to assimilate, there are aspects of her Dominican identity that she cannot abandon. Her family, large and impossible to hide, is the physical manifestation of her Dominican heritage and the large role it continues to play in her life, whether she likes it or not.

“Introducing them to my friends was a further trial to me. These relatives had such complicated names and there were so many of them, and their relationships to myself were so convoluted.”

Alvarez’s family underscores her difference from her American classmates. Her friends generally come from small nuclear families and struggle to understand Alvarez’s large family, full of aunts, uncles, cousins, and extended relations. This illustrates how Alvarez’s Dominican identity runs far deeper than her name, though the “complicated names” of her relatives continue to symbolize that heritage.

“Back home, my tíos and tías and primas, Mami and Papi, and mis hermanas had a party for me with sancocho and a store-bought pudín inscribed with Happy Graduation, Julie. There were so many gifts—that was a plus to a large family!”

This passage describes Alvarez’s family celebrating her high school graduation. Her admission that there are benefits to having a large family indicates that she isn’t interested in complete assimilation after all. There are parts of her Dominican identity that she continues to value and celebrate, and her extensive use of Spanish in this passage underscores this shift in mindset.