(Bitten) Tongues

The corner of Westwood Boulevard and Lindbrook Avenue is a lot most city corners: it’s got a Starbucks. They can be found in just about every country—including those of the third world— except for some countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. So, it’s no surprise that the foreigners from around the world, cling to these establishments they are familiar with, albeit nautically far away from home. Just outside the doors of this Starbucks, people from all around the world cluster around the espresso-hub, never straying far enough for their phones to disconnect from the free AT&T wifi signal.

Inside, I, like many other baristas, encounter many different people, from many different places, ordering many different drinks, which will be poured into many different cups, each individually marked with barista chicken-scratch into Sharpie hieroglyphics. These scrawled paper cups become a coffee shop patron’s emblem of identity; every letter-coded customization is a piece of themselves. While these markings may seem foreign to most customers, one can typically trust that they’ll be able to understand at least one key scribbling. That is, their name.

Unfortunately, not everyone can enjoy the pleasure of having a cup represent them, at least, not as easily. Because of our store’s proximity to UCLA’s UCLA Extension—a facet of the University of California that offers access to educational programs to adults and/or often to foreign exchange students—its customer demographic is largely diverse. A noticeably prominent portion of our customers happens to be of Middle-Eastern nationality.

As a barista at this particular store, I’m accustomed to thick accents, and having to decipher between whether or not a customer said their name was John or Joan, or whether they wanted a frappucino or a cappucino. “What can I get for you today?” Customers, foreign and native alike, always know the answer to this question, and they always say it with certainty, but when my exotic patrons are asked for their name, something happens, and I see it everytime. The internal struggle is clearly depicted on their faces, as much as they’d like to be honest and say “Sabyasachi,” and say it with pride, they bite their tongues, and resort to telling their barista to “just put S.” Some are lucky if they have short names like Bader or Sanya, but usually, this is not the case.

If only they weren’t so discouraged to be themselves, and proclaim this sense of self proudly. If only Americans had mouths capable of articulating names like Mukhopadhyaya & Jagadeesan, and had fingers able to etch them into cups effortlessly.