Wrestling With Racism in Children's Names and Naming Practices

• In Event: Bringing Asian American Children and Families to Light: Expanding the Racial Discourse in Early Childhood

Abstract

Purposes
Names and naming practices are central to individuals’ identities and self-concept (Alford, 1988; Dion, 1983). However, to immigrant families in the U.S., names and naming practices is not a simple taken-for-granted practice, since they have to juggle between their concerns and desires for their children’s names considering the structural racism associated with one’s name (Wykes, 2017). This study unpacks their children’s names and naming practices experienced by Korean American mothers-teacher educators both at home and school contexts. By doing this, we examine and discuss how schools and larger community contexts can play a supportive role against systemic racism relating to a child’s name and naming practices.
Theoretical Background
Scholars have documented that names are connected to our identities. Dion (1983) argued, “A name is, after all, a part of one’s self” (p. 251). A small body of educational literature has documented that naming practices to/for/by children are significantly connected with young children’s identities and sense of belonging (e.g., Authors, 2011; Kohli & Solórzano, 2012; Tualaulelei, 2021). For example, naming practices among peers are influenced by how adults call children’s names and subsequently influence children’s peer relationships (Authors, 2011). Naming practices at schools can be a powerful agency to empower children even when teachers pronounce children’s names correctly (Tualaulelei, 2021).
Methods & Data
As a collaborative auto-ethnography by four authors/presenters, we have collected our journals and auto-ethnographic fieldnotes to observe our own children’s and families’ lived experiences related to names and naming practices. Employing the suda method, a hierarchy -free conversational approach rooted in Korean culture (Authors, 2021a; 2021b), we had several suda [수다] sessions to share our data and analyze how naming practices to/for/by children are situated within a larger systemic racism at macro and micro levels.
Findings
The data revealed that we, as Asian American immigrant parents, spent a significant amount of time and effort deciding our own children’s names and negotiating our ambivalent values. As mothers as well as teacher educators, we have observed disadvantages children with hard-to-pronounce “foreign” names face. Hence, we were concerned about the in/visible racism our children could experience in U.S. schools. The data also showed that our children’s names hold deep cultural beliefs and family histories. Moreover, we found that young children have a fluid process to construct their identity through various naming practices at home and at school.
Significance
This study provides significant implications on how children’s names and naming practices should be approached in early childhood classrooms to support their positive self-identity development. Rather than approaching it as a taken-for-granted practice, teachers’ careful attention and efforts to understand special meanings behind each name and to correctly pronounce each and every name can be critical opportunities for children to take pride in what meaning their names have, and how their family/cultural values and beliefs are reflected in their names. This study addresses how name related practices can be collaborated between home/families and schools to better support healthy self-identity development for all young children.

Authors

• Jinhee Kim, Kennesaw State University

• Sophia Han, University of South Florida

• Su-Jeong Wee, California State University - Los Angeles

• Sohyun Meacham, University of Northern Iowa