Ryan Hernandez,
Color Brave Circle 4
These words uttered to me by my soccer coach at 12 years old, as he playfully confessed his expectation after seeing my name on the roster versus seeing an Asian kid roll up to our first practice. This was one of many distorted realities that I had to come to terms with as a POC growing up in a predominantly white middle-class suburb. As you could imagine, I didn’t have the wherewithal to educate this grown adult on Spanish colonization in the Philippines, and how my family eventually ended up with this name. My last name throws people off to this day, a constant reminder that I am defined by race (even when it’s not my own) even on paper. Humor is typically the easiest way to defuse and deflect to make that person feel better and lessen their feelings of guilt from their own ignorance, but at whose expense? While I am proud of my last name, a lot of times I am casually made to feel that even my own name can’t be simply made my own- the cruel irony that it is the product of colonization, not unlike the deeply-rooted supremacism we see and experience today. It saddens me to think about my niece who just turned 2, and will likely encounter these preconceived notions before she even knows it.
