Vietnamese Breaks The Name Binary
by Anthony Trung Quang Le
The artists in “50 Years of HOPE and HA-HAs” are listed alphabetically by first name as all name lists should be.
Have you ever had to run a sign in sheet for a community event, and no one knows how to find a god damn name? Alphabetical by last name is just extra work. And for what? You check the last name…fine… then sort alphabetically by first name… fuck you. Unnecessary labor.
I chuckle with people at the show because this order does put my name at the top. It was a lucky happenstance in Vagabond Zine too (which you can buy at Viet Zine Fest on 2/8). However when I was creating the initial draft of the zine, I was also happy to be first because I was able to set the tone boundlessly.
Thinking about my name reminds me of the kiddo days where I would anxiously wait for the teacher or person of authority to get to my last name (Le) and inevitably mispronounce it like Bruce Lee instead of /lay/. The whole time, I’m debating in my head about whether or not to correct them in this inescapable convergence.
Is this an occasion where the emotional labor is worth it for me?
Oftentimes I leave the mispronunciation uncorrected. Even today I’ll tell a food service worker my name is (Bruce) Lee for efficiency’s sake.
One time at my middle school graduation, a white woman really wanted to try to pronounce my full name (Anthony Trung Quang Le) to announce me while I walked the stage. I begrudgingly explained the phonetics because that was a tender idea. All the while, I didn’t want to have to explain that my family calls me Trung and my name in Vietnamese is Le Quang Trung, so it’s weird for me to even say Trung Quang Le out loud. It’s the same feeling I get when I have to enter the last four digits of my social.
Maybe it would be fun to see Viet artists by last name since there are so few names that I’ve heard, at least.
Alphabetized by last name and optimized for pattern recognition for this word search nerd:
It’s kind of cute, and part of me wonders if there are any unknown family ties. But is there an increased othering for those without a common last name? Viets othering Viets in a Vagabond project…Who would even dare?!
Ultimately, I’m conditioned to reject any “you’re all the same” narrative in the same way that I expect Southerners to ask me when I’m with another Asian person if we’re related or married. Wait, is it an act of love for them to make space for a potential marrying cousins situation? Best of both worlds? Or an Ivanka thing? Gross.
There’s an obvious classist overvaluing of surnames - a word I always have to look up: “A ‘surname’ is a person's family name or last name, while a ‘given name’ is the name given to a person at birth.” Is this a last will be first and first will be last religious thing? First is first is simple and lacks shame, depending on where your name falls.
From the list, you’ll also notice some people have names in quotations because Americans won’t pronounce some Viet names properly (including me). Then it’s an existential crisis for me, the list maker, to determine if the given name or the quotations name goes first.
Quotations names or chosen names are clearly relevant for my Queer community that includes trans people and artists, and having one name is legit. Where does having one name go in the hierarchy of last name status? Does it break the two+ name binary?
Aqua Plugs:
Go see the exhibit I curated “50 Years of HOPE and HA-HAs” and the two events left:
All events are free and please RSVP: VietArt.EventBrite.com
Anthony Trung Quang Le (he/they) is a DC-based multidisciplinary artist and identifies as Vietnamese, American and Queer. They work in painting, video, sculpture, printmaking, performance, writing and curation, exploring the joy of nonconformity. View Anthony's work at AnthonyLeArt.com and follow @AnthonyLeArt.
This concept of Vietnamese names is completely different from what I am used to from a Western context and even from a Sino-context as some names have 4 parts. While for mine, it's a bit more complicated as my parents gave me a very common Vietnamese name with a American name. Furthermore, my surname is Vuong, which is already an uncommon surname in Vietnam. So, in a way, it gives a more nuanced identity to just my name alone. I will always be known by my American regardless of where I go, I guess.