YWP: ‘How to lose your name’

[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.

Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.

YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.

What’s in a name? For some of us, everything. Weybridge resident Narges Anzali writes this week about the loss of her personal and cultural identities, so intrinsically are they tied to her own regularly mispronounced name. Her resolve to correct others may have weakened long ago – but the emotions these daily mistakes stir up in her never quite did. Anzali teaches us all that even when our intentions aren’t inherently “bad,” we are always capable of hurting others with our insensitivity.

How to lose your name

By Narges Anzali

[Y]ou lose your name
in a language that gives your name
vowels like curdled milk.

You lose your name
after hearing all the variations
that are not your name.

You lose your name
in the eyes of new teachers or substitutes,
in that moment they cringe
when they see your name
at the top of the list.

You lose your name
when you meet new people,
and your heart falls
because you don’t even care
to explain to them how to say it
anymore.

You lose your name
when everybody calls you
by the other name,
the wrong name,
the one that haunts you all day long,
lurking even in the shadows
until you want to shout:
“That’s not my name!”

You lose your name
when your friends
correct the substitutes,
because you don’t even care enough
to correct them anymore.

You lose your name
after you start to introduce yourself
with their name for you,
the wrong one.

You lose your name
when you start calling yourself
by the wrong name.

You lose your name.

And when you say
your real name on stage,
you will feel a moment of pride.
But then you will start to tear up
as you feel a part of your heart
start to chip off.
Because even though
that other name was wrong,
it was still your name.

And you lose your name.
Again,
and again,
and again,
and again.

Because when people like me
come to this country,
we always lose our names.