Cao 

By STEFFI CAO

Michigan in Color Contributor

Before you read on, it’s pro-

nounced like a T-S. Tsao.

My second grade teacher would 

always let me check out the advanced 
reading books, so she was pretty cool 
by my standards. But she could never 
say my name right, and that both-
ered me. No, not ‘chow,’ I would say. 
Not ‘cow,’ I would correct. She was 
an amazing teacher, but I just wished 
she would pronounce my name cor-
rectly. My name is three letters, was 
it really that hard?

One day, she came up to me while 

I was doing my multiplication.

“So I talked to Julia Yi’s father, 

and he says your last name is pro-
nounced ‘chow’,” she said in a kind of 
final way, before checking on some-
one else’s times tables.

I remember feeling … odd. I was 

seven, but I knew I was still right, 
because my mom said it a certain 
way, my dad said it the same way, 
my aunties and teachers in Chinese 
school said it the same way. I guess 
Mr. Yi probably just told her it was 
pronounced ‘chow’ so I wouldn’t 
have to keep arguing with her, but 
at the time, I knew I didn’t want it to 
be pronounced that way. And I didn’t 
know why my teacher seemed kind 
of satisfied to be right, just because 
another Asian parent told her she 
was doing fine.

It wasn’t the first time this kind 

of thing had happened. I remember 
in kindergarten, my teacher wrote 
‘CHAO’ all over my reading fold-
ers, which confused me to no end. 
I might have been a toddler, but I at 
least knew my last name was spelled 
C-A-O. I would feel uncomfortable 
about the way they spelled my name, 
even if I couldn’t figure out why. I 

didn’t like seeing that h in Cao. It just 
didn’t belong there. But it wasn’t the 
end of the world, so I just let it slide. 
I was a busy person, okay? I had let-
ters to trace. My pottery butterfly was 
only halfway finished. One ‘h’ on my 
folder wasn’t going to ruin me.

The game changed when in the 

fourth grade, I joined the elementary 
school drama club. It was exactly four 
people: me, and my three friends. 
When the teacher asked for introduc-
tions, she asked me how I pronounced 
my surname. I said it for her. Cao.

“Oh, like a T-S! Okay, got it.” 
And with that, my whole world 

changed. Like a T-S. It became the 
automatic response to answering 
many more years of pronunciation 
questions. But more than that, it 
proved one very important thing to 
me: non-Chinese people can say my 
name right. And it doesn’t take a lot of 
effort to learn it quickly.

It might not seem like a big thing, 

but when everyone treats your name 
like it’s some strange, unapproach-
able concept, it can feel alienating. I 
always felt like an other, an abnor-
mality among the “regular” names 
of the world. A burden on the teach-
ers who had to pronounce my weird, 
foreign name. Now, I know that’s not 
true. My name is not a burden — it is a 
name no lesser than any other. But for 
a long time, I avoided telling people 
my last name. I thought I didn’t need 
it. If Rihanna and Beyoncé didn’t use 
their last names, I don’t need to use it 
either, right? I know it’s different now. 
But still, when someone pronounces 
my name right, it feels a little victori-
ous. Maybe that’s why many Chinese 
parents give their children English 
names. Maybe it’s partially so that 
their children don’t have to constantly 
explain their name to everyone.

I don’t blame non-Chinese peo-

ple for not knowing how to say my 
name right away. If you grow up in 

an environment where you never 
have to learn it, how can I expect you 
to know? But if you refuse to try and 
learn it, if you laugh it off and shrug 
helplessly, or tell me how to say my 
own name, that’s where the issue 
arises. Because with globalization, 
the rise of development in countries 
around the world, and innovations 
in technology, our world is getting 
smaller. And with that, our cultures 
are interacting more and more. It’s 
just so illogical to avoid learning 
names that sound foreign to you.

My first year of college, our lecture 

was looking at a Chinese woman, Bei 
Bei Shuai, convicted of murder due to 
an attempted suicide while pregnant 
that killed her fetus (a whole other 
issue, but that’s for another time). 
Our professor skimmed over Shuai’s 
name, calling her “this woman” the 
whole time. In a lecture hall of 200 
people, our professor showed that 
you can ignore a person’s name if it 
sounds foreign, because it doesn’t 
matter. I don’t believe it was ill-inten-
tioned. But it reminded me of sec-
ond grade, of kindergarten, of every 
incident where people would sigh 
helplessly and say “I’m just not going 
to get it.” Hesitation condones igno-
rance, which in turn condones hate. 
#SayMyName was just an example of 
that. I don’t need anyone to ‘get it.’ But 
I need you to try. Because if I can try 
with all the Polish, you can make sure 
my last name sounds like a T-S in the 
beginning. If I can respect your name, 
you can respect mine.

I know I don’t have the hardest 

name in the world. I know some peo-
ple who have had to explain their first 
name and last name, who go through 
life with teachers pausing during 
attendance and recognizing confused 
silence as their name. And I know 
the hesitation isn’t meant to be mali-
cious. But the world is shrinking. 
And there is always time to learn.

9

Thursday, May 25, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

On APAHM - 
Asian Pacific 

American 
Heritage 
Month 

By CHISTIAN PANEDA

Summer Michigan in Color Editor

I had a fanboy moment a couple 

of weeks ago. “Steven Universe” 
is one of my favorite TV shows. 
Yeah, it is a children’s cartoon, 
but it also has a good storyline 
and complex character develop-
ment in addition to its whole-
some themes of friendship. What 
got me excited, however, wasn’t a 
crazy twist or suspenseful cliff-

hanger. It was a simple side plot 
with a cultural reference.

The side plot was of one of 

the supporting characters, Lars, 
showing the other characters 
— protagonist Steven and other 
supporting character Sadie — 
how to make a dish for a potluck 
when asked what food repre-
sents him. He picked a cake. But 
it wasn’t an ordinary cake. It 
was an ube cake. Ube is a Fili-
pino word for purple yam and an 
ingredient of many popular Fili-
pino desserts. Steven and Sadie 
help Lars make the ube cake, 
rejoice with happiness because 
of cake’s delicious flavor and 
continue on with the main plot 
of intergalactic conflict.

The reference may have been 

small, but it was so powerful to 
me because of one thing: rep-

resentation. The Asian Pacific 
American community has faced 
many 
conflicts 
with 
proper 

media representation from vis-
ibility to cultural appropriation. 
I was thrilled to think of how 
many children this scene would 
reach, especially Filipinx-Amer-
ican ones. It helps fight against 
stigmas of cultural practices 
as “weird” and shows Filipinx-
American children that there are 
people of the same heritage out 
there — even in the creative arts. 
For me, media representation for 
the APA community is impor-
tant because it reinforces how 
we feel about ourselves but also 
how others perceive us. While 
visibility remains an important 
issue, it is also crucial that rep-
resentations are not toxic stereo-

typical caricatures, and I thank 
“Steven Universe” for celebrat-
ing my heritage (not to mention 
having a diverse cast including 
voice actors Deedee Magno Hall, 
Shelby Rabara and Jennifer Paz 
who have Filipino roots).

As May is Asian Pacific Amer-

ican Heritage Month, it is a 
reminder to celebrate different 
Asian Pacific heritages and to 
keep pushing outside the month 
of May. In addition to being a 
time to be self critical, it is also a 
time to learn and to listen to oth-
ers’ lived experiences. Here at 
Michigan in Color, we offer the 
stories of some APA individuals. 
We recognize the many unique 
stories that are not yet shared, so 
we encourage students of color 
to speak their truth anytime, 
anywhere.

It is a reminder to 
celebrate different 

Asian Pacific 

heritages and to keep 
pushing outside the 

month of May.

