How would you like to be called not by your name, but by a number?
If I wouldn’t like to be called by a number, why would I do that to anyone else?
“Each of us has a name,” (see poem by Marcia Lee Falk below) and some of us have multiple names – full names, nicknames, private names, and sometimes different names in different relationships. Some people keep the same name all their lives, while others adopt new names as they grow and change. Names are so integral to identity, and that fact is so obvious, that’s almost difficult to explain why names are so important. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling why, maybe we should be showing.
Do me a big favor. Tell me a story about your name. Or, if you’re a parent, tell me a story about how you chose your child or children’s name.
But only tell me a story that you wouldn’t mind the whole world knowing. Better yet, tell me a story that you wish other people would know.
I will use those stories, poetry, and maybe reproductions of small drawings or photographs that you share with me for an important project about the meaning of names to people.
The project is a motion that I am writing for immigration court. I plan to “submit” this motion in June during a regular, normal, everyday, ordinary master calendar hearing. (Yes, note those words: “submit” and “master.”)
In such hearings, judges very frequently ask, “Last three?” What that means is, “Tell me the last three digits of your, or your client’s ‘Alien number.’” I am going to offer this motion in every case in immigration court starting in June 2017.
Why? Because when we refer to a person by digits instead of by her, his, or their name, we rhetorically render that person as less than human, or at least as less human than we are. To think of people as less than human is to begin to oppress them; using numbers rather than names is a tool of oppression.
If you’d like to participate, please write legibly or type your story, and sign it with your full name, as well as the name you’d like to be called (if different), and mail it to me: Virginia Raymond, c/o Justice for Our Neighbors, 2105 Parker Lane, Austin, Texas, 78741.
If instead of your own story, you wish to suggest something relevant you’ve read (maybe by bell hooks or Rebecca Solnit or Toni Morrison?) please do tell me. Send me as much information as you can and do respect that person by giving the full citation of that work including the title, author, publisher (if there is one), and date and place of publication if published. See example below. ** Let me figure out if it’s in the public domain, or if not, if I can ask the person for permission to include it in my project.
If you are over 18, it would be kind of cool if you would begin your story with: “My name is __________________, and I am over eighteen years of age and competent to make this statement.” Also it would be cool if you ended with “I affirm that this statement is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.” Then please actually sign the actual piece of paper, please. I love the idea of entering your poetry and prose as “exhibits” in a legal pleading.
If you’re not yet 18, so much the better. I’d love children’s and teens’ statements about their names, or the names they call their parents. I’d also be happy with “as told to…” stories from people who are not literate or not yet literate. Drawings are cool, too, but I won’t be able to afford expensive reproductions, and I’d really like everything to fit on 8 ½ x 11 paper.
EACH OF US HAS A NAME
Each of us has a name
given by God
and given by our parents
Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear
Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls
Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbors
Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing
Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love
Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work
Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness
Each of us has a name
given by the sea
and given by
our death.
© Translation: 2004, Marcia Lee Falk
From: The Spectacular Difference
Publisher: Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, 2004, 0-87820-222-6
