Names/Nombres

Irony is a literary device that involves a discrepancy between expectation and reality. Alvarez uses situational irony several times throughout “Names/Nombres” to explore the contradictions of her experience as an immigrant in the United States. For example, one of the essay’s central ironies is that both Alvarez and her older sister were born in the United States and are therefore American citizens. However, they are invariably seen as “foreign” by their English-speaking classmates—especially Mauricia, who struggles the most to have her name pronounced correctly. When Alvarez tells her classmates that she is from New York, where she was born, they insist on knowing where she is from “originally," highlighting the ethnocentric assumptions underpinning who counts as “truly” American. The treatment of Alvarez’s younger sister, Ana, underscores this; she was not born in the US but is more easily accepted as “American” because she looks Anglo American. The use of irony thus draws attention to the complexity of belonging and identity and, in particular, the illogical biases that shape them.