Truemors is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
GOP Texas Rep Upsets Some in the Asian American Community
Share:
by Karen Hatter | April 10, 2009 at 04:47 pm
436 views | 62 Recommendations | 7 comments
Videos
During the course of a meeting on voter identification issues, Representative Betty Brown (R-Tex.) suggested Americans of Asian descent should change their names to make it " .... easier for Americans to deal with."
Senator Leland Yee (D-Cal.), who is of Chinese descent, said of the remarks:
You would think these kinds of Neanderthal borderline racist comments would never happen ever again.
The senator stated further, speaking of his name :
It's an important aspect in my life; it defines a lot of who I am and what I'm about and my culture.
Click here for the article and video from CBS13 News.
This related video from YouTube shows Rep. Betty Brown at the hearing asking questions of an Asian American testifying regarding names of Asian origin.
After the speaker explains there are various ways to transliterate Asian names, attempting to spell the name phonetically, that may help to aid in pronunciation depending upon the origin of the name, as in if the name were Korean, Japanese or Chinese, Rep. Brown attempts to get a concession that changing the names for purposes of voting may be a better solution.
Advertisement
NowPublic on Facebook
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Crowd Power
Karen Hatter
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Recommendations (62)
Albert Milliron
Columbia, South Carolina, United States
A. Tran
New York, New York, United States
Anonymous users (4)
Fred Miller
Friendswood, Texas, United States
Babel-Fish
Negros Oriental, Philippines
Mary Richard
Toronto, Canada
eastvanray
vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (7)
at 18:56 on April 10th, 2009
It's way too easy to denounce this kind of idiotic and bigoted utterance by a legislator, but that Ms. Brown represents her constituents who voted this kind of person into office should be a concern to all Americans with a conscience.
Bigotry comes from ignorance and fear of differences.
There are countless Americans from Russia, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Sweden, Finland whose names are equally challenging as Asian names, why didn't Ms. Brown target them and ask them to change their names? Unless there are none in the state of Texas, I'd call this targeting Asian people and their names.
Thank you very much for posting this piece, Karen Hatter.
at 18:53 on April 10th, 2009
Change your name... yeah now get your skinned lighted... oh and by the way eat American food. Sad state
at 08:03 on April 11th, 2009
Maybe this idiot should just learn about the world outside Texas and her closed mind. There is a great big world out there Rep Brown and it doesn't speak American. I feel sad for people like this. They miss out on some much rich culture. Her loss!
at 20:46 on April 10th, 2009
I thought it was pretty sad, that people can be so bigoted still.
Like Pythiian said, people of many cultures have strange sounding names, so her statement discredits many, many people, not just Asian Americans.
at 21:45 on April 10th, 2009
It is appalling after seeing the footage covered by local television news, that Texas Rep. Brown uses the phrase, "Your citizens" as in "You people" to address a Chinese American lawyer whose nationality is exactly the same as Rep. Brown!
I am curious whether or not her Texas constituents would be offended or outraged, but if they are not, then they are complicit with their legislator's bigotry toward Americans of Asian descent, which is even more disturbing.
at 07:04 on April 11th, 2009
Just for interest many Chinese people have adopted an English first name, as it makes it easier to do business with Westerners. My mothers family changed their family name due to anti semantics.
Betty Brown should change here name as there are to many Brown's in the telephone book. I would suggest Betty Boobo being more appropriate. lol She just needs to be ignored
at 11:00 on April 17th, 2009
I suggest that Ms. Brown change her name to something we can all know, spell and pronounce. After all, I am not sure if she was originally named Bette, Bettie, Betty or just plane Bete.............I wish her name was not so confusing!! Maybe she would change her name to BB#7469321 to make it easier to pronounce and spell her name!!!