Articulation in White Supremacy: Tales of an Immigrant
Nirav is America Votes Pennsylvania’s deputy state director.
When I was five, I took my first steps into the halls of learning in the middle of a Chicago suburb. I was terrified. I was terrified of a new experience I did not understand. I was terrified of the people who stared at me like I was some strange, new creature that entered their home. I was terrified because I didn’t look or sound like anyone around me. I am South Asian.
Before the age of five, my social interactions had been with my family, my family friends — who are all South Asian — and the people at my mandir, most of whom did not regularly speak English. I was born in India, and there were few people around me who could teach me English. Luckily, I grew up in the age of television. Thanks, Knight Rider!
However, this is not a story about my adventures learning a new language, but a story about how white people used implicit bias to ease their discomfort and avoid learning something as simple as correctly pronouncing a name. This story is also about a young child’s fear translating into assimilation, perpetuating white supremacy through coalescence. Heavy stuff.
My teacher in second grade was a middle-aged, suburban white woman. One, who in retrospect, probably never had her views on race challenged, adjusted or corrected. Arguably, she probably didn’t know better because that education was potentially never provided to her, but that’s just another excuse to allow white people to feel comfortable at the expense of others. My family had just moved into a nicer neighborhood, so I was starting a new school with a clean slate. Unfortunately, that nicer neighborhood came with a level of ignorance as part of the suburban bliss.
On my first day, I walked into a classroom greeted by other students, most of whom were nice and terrified and quiet and nervous. A loud, obnoxious bell rang, a sound that would follow us for the next ten years and quite possibly condition us to be obedient. I think it failed, but we always took our seats anyway.
I sat in the middle of the room, not really knowing if that was appropriate. I was nervous someone would tell me I wasn’t allowed to sit there, but it was fine. As I scanned the room, I noticed there was a significant number of black and brown kids, which eased some of my tension. Understand, to me at that age, significant meant like five out of 25. When the teacher walked in, she greeted us with a smile and welcomed us to the classroom.
In that moment, the pronunciation of my name was forever solidified amongst my peers — not because they refused to correctly say it, but because I was too scared to correct them.
The first assignment was to write nametags for our desks. She then went around the room and read our names out loud. Tina, Stacey, Johnny, Bobby, Lindsay, Chris, Sam, N….Nar…..Narva…….Nivra…………….Naraav. My name is spelled N-I-R-A-V. It’s pronounced KNEE — r uh v. Gujarati is a phonetic language. She didn’t seem to care and moved on to the next one. I think to her and other white folks in the room, that moment was insignificant. It was not.
In that moment, the pronunciation of my name was forever solidified amongst my peers — not because they refused to correctly say it, but because I was too scared to correct them. I didn’t want to rock the proverbial boat. And, in a way, it was solidified with me.
The mispronunciation of my name remained a constant in every new space I entered. Most of the time, I was the initial perpetrator. For many years, the fear of being an outsider pushed on me to change my identity to align with what was considered the default American identity of being white and engaging in “white” culture. My family pointed out to me the ways in which I was not “Indian” because I was a “metalhead” with long hair and death metal t-shirts.
It wasn’t until much later that I realized they all had done the same thing. My uncles had changed their names to “American” names like Sam, Mike and Nick. My cousins allowed white people to mispronounce their names to make them more comfortable and to belong. They adopted “white” culture because that’s what you do as a South Asian immigrant in a country with a small South Asian population.
Even in what seems like the most inconsequential ways, it creates a massive impact on my identity and thought process in a way that even I perpetuate it by introducing myself as “Naraav.”
As I continue my journey learning and exploring racial injustice personally and professionally, I have seen the ways white supremacy directly impacts my life. Even in what seems like the most inconsequential ways, it creates a massive impact on my identity and thought process in a way that even I perpetuate it by introducing myself as “Naraav.” But my recognition of it allows me to take some ownership over it. I hope. There is still quite a bit of work to do.
The lesson here is that intentionally mispronouncing the name of an immigrant is not insignificant. It is not inconsequential. It has weight. And the coalescence of all parties is proof that white supremacy does not exclusively live in egregious or violent acts. Oftentimes, it buries itself in the most mundane aspects of life, slowly growing.
It’s pronounced Knee — r uh v. Thanks.
