We'll Have Made It When Everyone Cares Enough to Learn How to Say a Little Girl's Name

 

This P&G ad, for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, moved me to tears. I'll admit it's not hard for sappy commercials to make me cry. But this one hit me harder than I thought it would. I was trying to figure out why when it occurred to me that what is significant about the message is that the star of the scene is not some famous or important figure but rather an ordinary little girl.

Asian Americans are finding their voices in recent years. Whether it is excelling at the highest echelons of pop culture (BTS, Shohei Ohtani, Parasite) or speaking up against COVID-inspired anti-Asian hate, Asians are on the map in ways that wasn't true just a few years back. Which is wonderful, that we are shedding our stereotypically quiet demeanors and demanding to be heard.

But much of this is coming from "important people": celebs, wildly talented athletes and entertainers, and the politically and commercially well-connected. You'd expect them to have a vast orbit of popularity and sway. It's still meaningful that they are helping put Asian Americans on the map. But we need more than this.

Even in my own humble life story, whatever boldness I have to live and speak the way I do and whatever influence I am able to exert comes largely from a place of privilege, in that it builds from a comfortable upper-middle class upbringing and an Ivy League pedigree. I take some pride that in the things I've accomplished and the voice I'm able to give, I represent Asian Americans and in doing so I hopefully move the needle. But another part of me expects this, and sees very little real change created by someone like me having whatever measure of success or notoriety.

But the P&G ad underscores for me that we'll have made it as Asian Americans in this country when everyone cares enough to learn how to say a little girl's name. This little girl does not currently sell out arenas or inspire us with soaring social rhetoric. Being nice to her does not curry favor with the politically powerful or help us close a big business deal. 

And yet it is important for her parents and for her that her name is her name, that it means something, and that it deserves to be properly pronounced. Watching people genuinely desire to say her name right is a glimpse into a future I long for. In this future, Asian Americans are deemed worthy enough to be known and celebrated, inclusive of their Asian heritage, starting with the very name that they are called and upon which rests their very identity, and separate of any entertainment value or physical feat or societal importance that we can derive from them. 

What a day that will be. This May we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. May we, in our celebration, move ourselves to a place where every little Asian girl's name is worth learning how to pronounce right. It may seem trivial but it is everything to me.