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The Power of Names: Embracing Identity Through Personal Narratives

Explore the significance of names and their impact on identity, culture, and society. Dive into personal name narratives to understand the pride and prejudice associated with names, shedding light on issues of discrimination and self-awareness.

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The Power of Names: Embracing Identity Through Personal Narratives

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  1. The Pride and Prejudice of Names Monica Williams, M.B.A. President and Co-Founder of TIED Leadership Roundtable| Director of Equity and Inclusion| City and County of Denver  Roberto Montoya, M.A. Founder and CEO Praximity Group| Manager of Diversity and Engagement| City and County of Denver

  2. Agenda • Introductions • Activity • Creating a name narrative • The Pride of names • The Prejudice of names • Name awareness

  3. Introductions • Do you like your name? • Does it fit you? • Do you have a nickname? • If you could change your name, have/would you? To what? • If family name or naming tradition, have you carried it on/do you plan to carry it on?

  4. What’s in a name?Activity

  5. How do we get our names?

  6. My Name Narrative

  7. Facundo The Great

  8. The Pride

  9. The Familial Importance of Names "When we chose our daughters’ names we wanted to give them something that they could carry with them, something that they could use as strength, as home, in a world that might not always nurture them as we would want it to. We gave them Nahuatl names. We gave them names that were hundreds of years old that carried with them the prayers of their great grandmothers. Names that represented their own spirits, but that also manifested the spirit of their people," (p. 1) Source: Kohli, R., & Solórzano, D. G. (2012). Teachers, please learn our names!: Racial microagressions and the K-12 classroom. Race Ethnicity and Education, 15(4), 441-462.

  10. The Prejudice

  11. Substitute Teacher - Key & Peele

  12. 36% White applicants receive 36% more callbacks than equally qualified African Americans while White applicants receive on average 24% more callbacks than Latinos

  13. Is there any evidence of name discrimination in the legal system?

  14. The Name Narrative • Personal and organizational change best takes place with an inside-out process that begins with these commitments: • Examine your own values, assumptions, and behaviors • Work with your peers to examine institutional policies and procedures • Be an integral part of the community you serve by learning with and from them • The Name Narrative is one tool, that uses the inside-out process, for teaching individuals to explore their names and their linkages to their family’s cultural and racial roots, thereby gaining agency in talking about race, ethnicity, identity, and culture and becoming more racially conscious.

  15. Identity Cues in Names • Gender • Ethnicity • Race • Languages • Geography • Birth Order • Intergenerational Linkages • Marital Status • Religion • Cultural and Racial Assimilation • Resistance To Assimilation • Mestizaje or Intermarriage • Native / Indigenous Ancestry • Folk Legends • “Americanization,” Imposed or Chosen • Pronunciation / Spelling • Political / Ideological Choices • Racial / Cultural Ambiguity of Appearance • Melded Family Stories • Tribute or Honoring Rituals • Literary Influences • Family naming traditions

  16. Name Awareness: Identity Cues and Clues • Visible • Gender, race, ethnicity, Native or Indigenous identity • Sometimes visible • Religion, marital status, cultural/racial assimilation, mixed race, “Americanization” • Audible • Language, accents, resistance to assimilation, political or ideological choices, pronunciation and spelling • Family-related • Race, ethnicity, Native/Indigenous identity, birth order, inter-generational links, religion • Government-related • Gender, race, ethnicity, Native/Indigenous identity, marital status, languages, accents, political identity

  17. Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (1991) "In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. . . .  It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. . . . I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.” (pp. 10-11)

  18. Story Telling & Story Listening Skills • Don’t interrupt a story • Listen! Try not to think about what you are going to say • Don’t interrogate or rebut someone’s story • Stories are recursive – a detail told by someone might remind you of something about your story, if we had time, we’d go around a second time and allow you to revise/add to your story • Share only what you are comfortable/able to share • Feel free to pass if you don’t want to tell your story – judgment-free zone • Be aware of time – name narratives have long and short versions

  19. Name Narrative Video https://vimeo.com/63294353

  20. Why is the Name Narrative exercise important? • Strengthening racial/ethnic identity enhances individual and collective skill sets • Name stories with racial analysis helps connect our school/work lives with our home lives • Working with people from different backgrounds and identities makes you smarter

  21. “ “Race thought is never easy – it is full of tension, ripe with contradictions, and needs all the help it can recruit. The analysis should be as complex as the topic itself’ (Leonardo, 2013, p. xv).

  22. References Etienne, M. (2005). Pain and Race: A New Understanding of Race Based Sentencing Disparities. U. St. Thomas LJ, 3, 496. Delgado Bernal, D., Burciaga, R., & Flores Carmona, J. (2012). Chicana/Latina testimonios: Mapping the methodological, pedagogical, and political. Equity & excellence in education, 45(3), 363-372. Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed (revised). New York: Continuum. Leonardo, Z. (2013). Race frameworks: A multidimensional theory of racism and education. Teachers College Press. Murphy, C. E. (1988). Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. NC Cent. LJ, 17, 171. Montoya, M. E. (1994). Mascaras, trenzas, y grenas: Un/masking the self while un/braiding Latina stories and legal discourse. Chicano-Latino L. Rev., 15, 1. Sánchez, M. E. (1985). Contemporary Chicana poetry: A critical approach to an emerging literature. Univ of California Press. Valdez, L. (2004). Pensamientoserpentino. Alexander Street Press. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf https://testimoniofinalproject.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/how-to-make-a-testimonio-successful/

  23. Mil gracias! Questions? You can contact us a:t roberto.montoya@praximitygroup.com monica.Williams@flydenver.com

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