Reflection #1: The Impact Of Our Name In Society
Whenever I come across the claim “Communication is Personal,” I always think about the meaning of my name in society. Despite not being a physical part of our body, our name is one of the most important aspects of us. It defines our identity in society, and because of that, bias through name is unavoidable.
As Ms. Konnikova demonstrated in the article “Why your name matters” on The New Yorker, there is an undeniable sign of favoritism between white-sounding name and black-sounding name in hiring, based on a study in 2004. And not just in the workforce, favoritism also appeared in school as well. In the study of children in Florida district conducted between 1994 and 2001, it was demonstrated that there was a clear difference in teacher’s treatment of black-sounding name compared to white-sounding name. With my personal experience, I completely relate to the claim about bias in our name. I was born in a small province called Nghe An, part of Central Vietnam. When I was young, my family was poor, so a lot of my cousins had to work as factory workers. However, luck was not on our side.
There was a stigma associated with my area: when Vietnam was still in war with the French and Americans, Nghe An was one of the first provinces to stand up and confront the enemies, alongside with the rest of Central Vietnam. Because of that, my area was famous for the solidarity among our people during the war. But some people saw our solidarity as a bad sign, especially factory owners. At the beginning of the 21st century, there were a lot of worker strikes in factories, and coincidentally, a large part of workers involved in those strikes were people from Central Vietnam. This led to a belief among factory owners that if they hire people from my area, they would promote worker strike. For a very long time, factory owners didn’t hire people with names similar to people from Central Vietnam, just like the bias between white and black sounding name. This continued for a very long time, and my family members were heavily affected. They couldn’t get any factory worker job, and there was no other job available. Angry with this bias practice, for a very long time, our family, along with everyone else in Central Vietnam, protested this horrible hiring practice. It was not until 2008 that this hiring practice was finally brought to light and prohibited.
For me, this event was the first time that I ever thought about the impact of my name in society. This was the time that I realized, there are many characteristics that attached to our name: our gender, our ethnicity, and in this case, our place of birth. Unfortunately, the factory owner incident was one of many, and there still exist many people who look at our name and deliver their judgment, without considering other aspects of us.
