My given name is Leila, but before it was Leila it was Ji Xiang Jiang. My nicknames have been Cracker, JJ, LJ, Lulu, Cookie, Shmookie, Boobaloo, and counting, not to end any time soon. A name is fragile. It’s your label. You grow into it, or out of it. It's the word representing you before the definition of who you are. Maybe you’re super artistic and energetic, but before that, you are your name.
However, I am not just my name. I am also Layla, or Leela, the “I” overshadowed by the “E” before it. I watch as the vowel gets twisted on someone's tongue before my eyes, not correcting them, just letting it happen. My ballet teacher called me Layla for probably 8 weeks straight before giving up. Did she give up on my name, or did she give up on me? Eventually, she would just give me a silent nod, not bothering, or too scared to drop the crystal glass that was my name. I guess in the back of my head it annoyed me whenever someone messed up my name, but it was too tiring to tell people over and over how to say it. I grew to answer a multitude of names that sound like Leila. I guess even I have given up on my given name, and I wonder if I will ever stand strong about it again.
Another thing about my given name, it is not my only given name. “A woman you work with calls you by the name of another woman you work with.” This has happened to me. And it will happen again. But it won’t just be some other woman. It will be a short Asian girl.
Throughout my life I’ve been every other short Asian girl around my age’s given name. It wasn’t that we looked similar. We don’t. But in other’s eyes, it doesn’t always matter.
First it was Julliette, a Korean girl I was friends with in kindergarten. Then it was Peri, my friend from Vietnam. Then my sister even though we are from different parts of China. After that it was Felice, our teacher used to mix up our report cards, mix us up. I rolled my eyes. Do we really seem that similar? Do you not look past our race? It didn’t end there though, Michelle, Tina, Gina, all short and Asian, all the same. They say: “Sometimes the worst injury is feeling you don’t so much belong to you,” and it's true. Every time I become another name I realize how people see me. I am not unique in their eyes. We are all the same. I’ve realized that to others, as much as my name, my word that represents me, belongs to me, it also belongs to others. Short Asian girls are all the same.
Includes quotes from Citizen by Claudia Rankine