Medium Article

Article from Medium: The Loneliness of an Ethnic Name by Yeri Yun

This Medium article is referring to another article from 2014, “How We Pronounce Student Names and Why It Matters”

I think that this article relates to my visual in an oddly specific way. While my visual doesn't really have much to do with pronunciation of names, it does relate to how ethnic and cultural diversity are important in a school environment. Both the visual and the article from medium kind of show that learning about different cultures and their history is a very important idea for teachers and students alike. Although the visual has a much more broad idea to how people should learn about their own and other peoples cultures, the article goes deeper into detail showing how even learning the language and the names of people in different culture can have a huge impact on people. I don't have much to relate to the article because I believe my name is pretty easy to pronounce, but I do always get questions about my last name usually because I think people always expect it to be a lee or a chen and not the number ten. I can relate to having teachers ask about my last name and making funny jokes about it like Ben ten or ten out of ten but it never bothered me because it seemed rude or with intent to demean, so I am okay with all of it. Yeri's problems with her name seem a lot more embarrassing and drawn out every time someone tries to say her name, so I can understand how she feels about the topic. But I think that the main takeaway is not just learning how to pronounce someones name, but more on how to understand and embrace someones background and culture and to truly understand how and why their name is pronounced differently than you would think.