Posted by
Steve on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 1:56:13 PM
This morning on the Mike Gallagher show, he was talking about a situation where a business owner asked an employee to anglicize their name when talking to customers. This happened because the employee was at a switchboard. The incident that brought it to everyone’s attention happened in Taos, New Mexico. Since I did not hear the first part of the discussion, I did not hear which news organization handled the report. The woman reporter was upset that the employee was asked to anglicize their name. Another news anchor at the station brought it up later and said that is exactly what he had done. His reasoning was that it is more important that the public be able to understand his name, than it was what he was called. Then he gave his full Hispanic name, which I could not understand. I did understand the name he uses at the station, Rick Sanchez.
The business owner did not ask all Hispanic employees to anglicize their names. He only asked the ones that deal with the public on a first call basis to anglicize their name. The other Hispanic employees are not asked about their names at all.
This only seems fair to me. This is America and the dominant language is English. So, it stands to reason that names are anglicized. That happened to my mother’s father when he came from Sweden. They could not understand him, so they got a close approximation. It was supposed to be Svenson, but he ended up with Swahn. The spelling was also originated by the agents at the intake center. I know of numerous occasions when that has happened to families as they came to America. Their last name was changed because of the intake agent misunderstanding the immigrant or because of the intake agent misspelling the name. Many friends of mine have discovered this as they have done their genealogy.
The situation could become a matter of discrimination if the employer asked all employees to modify their names. That would be discriminatory. Just asking the employees that deal most directly with the public to modify their names is reasonable. They are not asking them to pick some name that is not theirs, they are just asking them to use the anglicized version of their name. What that usually amounts to is changing how their name is pronounced, not actually changing the name itself. That is really nothing at all.
I can see where a person would want their name pronounced correctly. My last name is regularly mispronounced when people see it written. If they just hear it, they have no problem with it. It is only when they see it written they have a problem. The problem also occurs when they try and take the verbal name and translate it to written form. It is really a simple name, but it gives people the fits just the same. So, I understand where the Hispanic employees are coming from. I want my name pronounced correctly all the time. But, over the years, I have come to understand that people mispronounce it with good intentions. So, it has become less of an issue as I have gotten older.
If some employer asked me to change the pronunciation of my name to fit with the language of the country I was living in, I would have no problem. I would probably grumble at first, that would be human, but I would get over it in the long run. Customer service comes first, not my comfort. If it helps my business to get even one more customer because of my changing how my name is pronounced, I would do it in a heartbeat. That is the nature of the cut-throat world of business. Personal pride should come second to helping the business succeed.
I think that the first female news anchor was all wet. She was creating a tempest in a teapot. Rick Sanchez has the right attitude. It has helped him in his career to anglicize his name. It would help other Hispanic individuals to do the same in the English speaking world of the United States. If they want to work on Spanish language stations, then they would not have to worry about the problem. But that would mean a potentially smaller income. The choice should be theirs. Personal pride or customer service are the two competing arguments. In my mind, customer service comes before pride.