Laney College professor asked a Vietnamese student to “Anglicize” her name to accommodate him

[m_shortpants]

Get fucked, boy. This hits close to home.

I have an Arabic name and I distinctly remember in 7th grade we had this substitute teacher, a full on MAGA type, mispronounce and butcher my name, I said "here" regardless and someone else thankfully corrected him. He got pissed and complained and asked why I couldn't have a "good American name like John or Jim", I kid you not. Fucking racist trash. This was also near 9/11 so I faced all kinds of discrimination around those days, even in California.

 

[SmokeMaxX]

Same with Nguyen. "weengh" is completely unintuitive, so I tell people to say "new yen" so I at least know it's me being addressed.

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Do you not just prefer the "win/when" pronunciation? I get irritated when I hear "new yen." Just like with "nuh guy en" it just seems like they're trying to treat it like an English name and butchering it.

 

[16bits]

what an absolute grade A racist moron. I cannot believe he got this far in education with an attitude like this.

Its really easy, if you struggle to say a name - simply apologize and ask how it is pronounced, and make an effort to learn it.

Also lots of names have meanings, just like they do in english, like "Autumn" or "Sun". I like to associate the meaning of the name with the person - which helps me remember too and learn new words in the process.

Anyway, retire this idiot.

 

[unicornKnight]

true

Anyway pathetic stance from the professor. No way college sides with him.

 

[LewieP]

I did get quite a few laughs in Cambodia because my name sounds very similar to "money". I just rolled with it, and no one ever suggested I changed my name.

 

[Prax]

Do you not just prefer the "win/when" pronunciation? I get irritated when I hear "new yen." Just like with "nuh guy en" it just seems like they're trying to treat it like an English name and butchering it.

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Yeah, I prefer "new yen" if only because when it lacks tone, it seems even worse to me than English butchering haha (at least i know what letters they are trying to read). I actually have a coworker whose name is spelled 'Wen' and is Chinese, so I try to make it easier for myself to figure out who they mean when they mispronounce.

But I think it's fine if others prefer the win/wen version too.

I liken it a bit to letting people pick if they prefer to be called reg-ee-na vs reg-ai-na when it comes to the name Regina if they specific want to rhyme with vagina or not.

 

[Michaelandavinci]

I don't live in the U.S but I got relatives there and the shit that pissed me off the most is that older Vietnamese Americans love Trump cos he go against China but at the same time they don't realized he is the one that enables this kind of shitty racist behaviours.

 

[Rice Eater]

Asian American here, people have been mispronouncing my name throughout my whole life. It really isn't that hard to pronounce, but I guess because it's unfamiliar and me being Asian they make it so much harder on themselves and butcher it very badly.

Admittedly I kind of wish my parents did give me a Western name so I can just go around saying "hey I'm John". But that didn't happen. At least it was kind of cool to have a name that no one had ever heard of before. Nowadays I share my name with a really popular female pop star 😒

 

[Freakzilla]

Like believe what you want but how the fuck can you be this stupid.....

 

[bagandscalpel]

Admittedly I kind of wish my parents did give me a Western name so I can just go around saying "hey I'm John". But that didn't happen. At least it was kind of cool to have a name that no one had ever heard of before. Nowadays I share my name with a really popular female pop star 😒

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As an Asian American that does have a Western first name, you aren't missing much. People have been mispronouncing even that all my life.

 

[Trup1aya]

The request was ignorant, but that double down after she threatened to file a complaint.... what the actual fuck!

Sorta related but not really... when I was a kid at summer camp, I had a roommate who anglicized his name to Richard Wang and asked people to call him Dick Wang purely for the lols

 

[Rice Eater]

As an Asian American that does have a Western first name, you aren't missing much. People have been mispronouncing even that all my life.

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Doesn't surprise me one bit. My younger brother is named "Young", just like the English word. But they see what he looks like and refuse to accept that it can be that simple

As for me, this is my usual experience

 

[TroutEater]

Reminds me of the thread where someone was asking if they should give their daughter an Irish name as the wife wished and people here were telling them to anglicize it. Makes my blood boil just remembering it.

It's her name, have some respect, cunt.

 

[Dennis8K]

Meanwhile the IOC vice president is named Dick Pound.

 

[erlim]

My last name means dick in Icelandic apparently and my and my Icelandic friends just laugh and laugh about it.

 

[Prax]

Reminds me of this thread:

AITA for telling my sister her daughter's name is stupid? : AmItheAsshole

A catharsis for the frustrated moral philosopher in all of us, and a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that's been...

i.reddit.com

Lady makes fun of sister (white) and brother-in-law's (viet) chosen Viet name for their son, Van. Yet herself named her daughter McKennedeigh. ...

 

[VikingJoseph]

Strange thing is that by his Twitter account he seems very liberal, messages in support of blm, against Rowling and Trump, etc. Though I wonder if these were added afterwards
(Same name, same city and tweeting about math when he is a math prof makes it an almost certain match)

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Right wing MAGA types by no means have a monopoly on racism, xenophobia and ignorance. It exists plenty among those that would identify as liberal unfortunately.

 

[Conal]

Unironically love the name Phuc Bui

 

[Slayven]

I didn't expect it to be in an email. She did right and sent that shit right in.

 

[collige]

Smart enough to be a professor yet dumb enough to double down after seeing the phrase "Title IX" thrown out

 

[Dyno]

I

Fook Boo.Ee
But the Fook part is really short and fast.

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This would have been my phoenetic guess tbh. For a Professor he seems pretty dumb

 

[OrangeNova]

If you speak a totally different language, chances are some names, words are going to be difficult, or some might mean something else.

But all it takes is 'Hey, how do I pronounce this? Alright cool." and you might fuck up a few times, but you're potentially saying words/sounds you didn't grow up with existing.

I don't understand why people are so upset about saying something wrong that they'd rather just change a persons name.

 

[Bentendo24]

Woof, that double down was something else

 

[L Thammy]

Right wing MAGA types by no means have a monopoly on racism, xenophobia and ignorance. It exists plenty among those that would identify as liberal unfortunately.

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Liberals can also convince themselves that they aren't racist because they're on the "right side", and it's fundamentally different when they say the same things as "real" racists.

I wouldn't be so surprised if a lot of people like this crop up if and when Biden is elected and people decide that racism must be over.

 

[Deleted member 5865]

In what world does bui = boy?

 

[gitaroomanlives]

I used to do meals on wheels in my area, and I have a somewhat ethnic sounding name, but nothing really hard to pronounce. Still didn't stop a bunch of old white men from telling me, fairly regularly, that we live in an English-speaking country and that I ought to Americanize my name to better accommodate them. These people have literally spent their lives thinking the world was built to cater to their delicate sensibilities, so it doesn't surprise me that this professor thought he'd get away with doubling down on his request.

 

[Doggg]

A stupid, immature, racist professor on a power trip. He deserved that.

 

[Socivol]

I couldn't believe what I was reading. So extremely offensive and xenophobic.

 

[Addleburg]

I'm Nigerian, and while my name doesn't sound like anything in English, I've never felt the need to Anglicize it for any of my instructors. And I think if they had asked me to, I definitely would have had an issue with it.

Pretty much the only time I'll do it is if I'm going to a restaurant or coffee shop and they just need a name for the order. And then I do it purely for my own convenience so I don't have to spell it out or hear "Oh, what nationality is that? Nigerian? I knew someone in high school who was Nigerian. His name was.... " small talk.

 

[Squarehard]

The most telling part about this is that he asked her to "Anglicize" her name, rather than asking her if there another name she prefers to go by.

Basically just exposed himself completely with that usage.

 

[yellowfury]

It takes two seconds to ask someone how to pronounce this name. This guy is a turd.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

If it wasn't for Lady Gaga people wouldn't know how to pronounce my name, which is shocking because I don't think it's even that hard.

 

[No_Style]

College professor was an ignorant ass.

I didn't know how it's pronounced so I searched and found this video.

 

[B.O.O.M.]

Prof was out of line as fuck. Not acceptable.

I'm guessing this is not the first time this guy has done this either.

 

[Dullahan]

What a fucking jackass. Fuck him!

 

[Belthazar90]

I doubt it's pronounced as fuck boy and... even if it was, it's just what it is. It'll certainly be awkward for a while and some students will try to be funny with it but it'll most likely get old fast and stop

 

[TheOMan]

Grown man WHOISAPROFESSOR being this stupid is wild.

 

[gosublime]

One of the first things I do with a new class is ask them how they want their name pronounced. Then I pronounce it however they want. Its not difficult.

 

[Fulminator]

what an asshole

how in the world did he think he wouldn't face any kind of consequence for that

 

[SRG01]

I would have told him "pronounce it like "fook bwee" so there won't be any problems, but he doesn't need to include her middle name anyway! So what the heck?

I always end up telling people to pronounce my name as "fong" (Phuong) even though "foongh" is a closer sound approximation if I leave out the heavy tone, but it makes me cringe hearing people trying to pronounce that, so I went the easy route for non-tonal tongues lol.

Same with Nguyen. "weengh" is completely unintuitive, so I tell people to say "new yen" so I at least know it's me being addressed.

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I find that Vietnamese is similar to Gaelic in the sense that it's about recognizing how the spelling leads to certain phonetics. Like how Saoirse is Sur-sha.

Like, Nguyen is pretty easy to pronounce once I get past the spelling and go right into the phonetics... but is it true that there's regional differences (ie. North vs South) in how it's pronounced?

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

The professor has since been put on administrative leave:

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That's actually a solid response. I'm not left shaking my head for once.

 

[MrMegaPhoenix]

i know the answer already, but what would he do if it was a white american called:
- anita fuchs
- amanda cummings
- hugh jass
- wayne king

or whatever. would he have demanded a name change? doubtful, yet those names (which can be real) are all much worse looking (in his logic) than the example he was bothered with

just weird anyway. i know tons of chinese people or nearby and you just call them by what they want. some use anglicized names, some dont. its like calling michael by mikey. do that, or use michael. dont demand he use mikey. simple stuff that the professor absolutely should have known

 

[Van Bur3n]

Literally just do the research on how to pronounce it you dumb fuck boy bitch.

Or better yet, simply talk to the person who is Vietnamese about it. Vietnamese can be a difficult language to get right, but it wouldn't fucking kill ya to just compromise with the individual for an alternative. I got an English name but my last name gets butchered to fuck and back, but most folk are just decent enough to ask "how should I pronounce that". They don't ask you dumb shit like "please change your entire identity because you've slightly inconvenienced my dumb ass".

 

[Blank]

The only way this story could be more amazing is if the Professor's name was Richard.

 

[Prax]

I find that Vietnamese is similar to Gaelic in the sense that it's about recognizing how the spelling leads to certain phonetics. Like how Saoirse is Sur-sha.

Like, Nguyen is pretty easy to pronounce once I get past the spelling and go right into the phonetics... but is it true that there's regional differences (ie. North vs South) in how it's pronounced?

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Oh yeah, North and South dialects pronounce lots of things differently along with sometimes using different vocabulary. I'd call Northern dialect the fancy or prestige version. It sounds softer, kind of like British English (pr more mandarin style?) compared to Southern dialect with is like .. North American (or more cantonese-like) style which is punchier and flatter (that's me, folks!). There's also a central dialect that I don't hear very often, but my parents make it seem like a cockney or redneck version where the emphasis on syallables are even heavier?

I think Northern dialect, Nguyen is much more like "nwinh" and Southern dialect is more like "nweeng", and add a "question mark" tone on top of both, but I could be wrong.

I'm not really able to tell what people are saying when it's not in my dialect because my own Vietnamese is so limited, but it should technically be mutually intelligible lol.

 

[wandering]

Strange thing is that by his Twitter account he seems very liberal, messages in support of blm, against Rowling and Trump, etc. Though I wonder if these were added afterwards
(Same name, same city and tweeting about math when he is a math prof makes it an almost certain match)

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psst, plenty of liberals can be racist.

In fact, racism from liberal white people happens all the damn time and is more infuriating than from conservatives because they'll insist that they're a progressive ally the whole time.

 

[RoaminRonin]

The professor is a legit fuckboy for even thinking that's how it's pronounced even before asking her. And someone said earlier that this is a community college full of Asians, so there's no excuse, it tells me this guy was trying to be a cheeky shitbird.

 

[harry the spy]

psst, plenty of liberals can be racist.

In fact, racism from liberal white people happens all the damn time and is more infuriating than from conservatives because they'll insist that they're a progressive ally the whole time.

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Sure, but it's weird that someone that would be so supportive on social justice on the outside would also be willing to say racist shit practically publicly. I'd think liberal racism is usually less in the open

 

[TheAndyMan]

I wonder if there's also people called
"Ho Lee Chit" 🤔 in real life. Awkward.

 

[Osahi]

It actually sounds bad to my ears when people miss out the exact tone, and makes me cringe when people wedge in tone in the middle of an english speech pattern. Might as well call me by a completely different name at that point lol. I am used to it by now anyway. Even my sibs just use my self-chosen "english" pnounciation when we're talking in English, which is almost all the time.

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I already find it a bit grating when non-Dutch speaking people pronounce my name because they often have a problem with one of the sounds. Can't imagine how grating it must be when you have a name from a tonal language pronounced by someone who doesn't speak a tonal language.