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My Turn by Elisa Dozono

From The Asian Reporter, V17, #41 (October 9, 2007), page 6 & 7.

You got me thinking. But think again if YOU think I’m talking about YOU, dear readers. And consider why YOU self-centeredly thought I meant YOU, rather than the Honorable Youlee You, a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge, and the first Asian woman to earn a seat on that bench.

At a recent Oregon Minority Lawyers Association lunch, Judge You made me think twice about how quick we Americans are to judge foreign languages and react to what we think are "funny" names.

Judge You talked about her experience with her own name, including how a recent defendant called with questions about being on probation to himself. After telling the defendant that was impossible, Judge You’s confused judicial assistant discovered it was because when the defendant pled guilty, he was assigned to Judge You.

We were all amused when Judge You claimed she could never open a law office with Judge Alicia Fuchs here. And then Judge You questioned how we should react to names like Mi Suk Lee, a Korean actress, or Fuk Yoo Wang, a Korean theologian. Or what about the Abercrombie & Fitch shirts that proclaimed, "Two Wongs Can Make It White?"

You probably want to laugh. I did. But then I worried; by doing so, could I be disrespecting ethnic names and the associated culture?

In the U.S., judges have always been held in high honor and esteem. So what message does it send to budding lawyers when a Lewis & Clark law professor pokes fun at Judge You’s name in his blog? Perhaps he didn’t know that You means "warrior" in Korean, or maybe he’d have thought twice before joking about how "You be the Judge," or "at the courthouse You gets the check."

Judge You takes it all in stride, but we should at least wonder — where respect is lacking, could subtle discrimination lurk behind it? By not speaking up, do we risk a creeping plague of racism?

But maybe people were being too thin skinned and not appreciating the wit of campaigns like that of Abercrombie & Fitch.

One problem with that theory is that Abercrombie marketed the shirts to young people, notes Susan Soon-Keum Cox, vice president of public policy and external affairs for Holt International, an international adoption agency.

"How do you explain the ‘humor’ of slanty-eyed caricatures to young adoptees from China when you’re trying to make them feel proud of their physical characteristics?" Cox asked me.

"When there’s any kind of stereotype that’s demeaning, whether it is around ethnicity or disability, it’s just that, demeaning," said Cox. "If it’s at the expense of someone else, we should stand up and say that’s not a great idea."

Cox was adopted in 1956 by an Oregon family. She didn’t have a birth certificate, but because she was half-Korean and half Caucasian, her Korean passport listed her as Caucasian. When she was adopted, the mission was to Americanize children as quickly as possible. Thus, she never even learned the correct pronunciation of her Korean name Soon-Keum (Soon-goom) until she was in her mid-20s. When she learned her name meant "pure gold" in Korean, she "liked it a lot better," she recently told National Public Radio (NPR) in a story about adoptees.

Today, Cox says the practice of adoption has changed, and families are encouraged to maintain children’s birthnames, whether it be keeping their ethnic first name or making it a middle name. Ethnic names, Cox notes, give many of the children Holt works with their only sense of identity.

"When children are adopted, there’s so little you know about their history, and one thing that is identifiable is to be able to know what their name means," said Cox. "Especially in Asian countries, when people ask your name, they can usually tell what your name means. When someone here says ‘Susan,’ people can’t tell you what it means. Names have a very significant meaning in other countries."

Working at Holt heritage camps, Cox has noted how kids feel connected to and proud of their association with their birth culture today. Cox observed how many adoptees she knows have incorporated their birthnames into their e-mail addresses.

Does it make a difference if minorities do the stereotyping and name jokes? Shoe giant Adidas found out "maybe not" when it had a collectors’ sneaker designed by Chinese-American artist Barry McGee.

McGee, also known as "Twist," put a caricature of himself at age eight, dubbed "Ray Fong," on the shoe, because he said as a young person he remembered having Stan Smith’s face on his Adidas, and he wanted a caricature of himself on the shoe when he had the opportunity.

Maybe it’s the intent that makes the difference, suggests Judge You. "The problem is when it defines an entire group of people in a very simplistic way," says You. "We’re more complicated than that."

In college, my Chinese and Korean and half-Japanese-half-Irish sorority sisters and I got so frustrated at being mixed up all the time, we began to call ourselves the "slant sisters," but I can imagine we would have been furious had anyone else given our group that name.

"Part of when you make jokes about a particular group or race is it’s a bonding thing," said Judge You. "There are jokes about Korean mothers being protective and guilt ridden, and maybe it’s partly true, so you feel some connection."

I once studied the history of American humor, which included a section on how African Americans like Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and Eddie Murphy actually helped break racial barriers by becoming famous by making fun of their own race. So shouldn’t we be able to laugh at ourselves? Or does it merely confuse people who then think it’s O.K. for them to make fun of our slanty eyes too?

"Maybe talking about it is enough," says Judge You. "If you can just get people talking about it so they understand each other, that’s a huge step. That’s the reason I try not to find it offensive [when people joke about her name]. At least then we’re talking about it, and maybe gives it a chance to say how meaningful my name is to me."

Dozono, by the way, means temple garden in Japanese.