What’s in a surname? Race and workplace discrimination

A few months ago at a table tennis club, I met John* (not real name), the IT manager of a rather prominent marketing company. To my pleasant surprise, I found out that his job includes interviewing and recruiting web and graphic designers for the company. As a design student, I jumped straight at this golden opportunity and instinctively put myself right out there.

His response both surprised and amused me.

Revealing racism

‘Oh, really,‘ I said with a mild smile and genuine interest. ‘Why’s that?‘ 

‘Naww… It’s nothing personal, really, I just never do hire Chinese, or Asians, generally.‘

‘I have two Chinese girls working for me at my company,‘ a lady listening to our conversation piped in. ‘I love them! They’re fantastic! Really good workers, you should give her a try!‘

‘Yeah I don’t know, I’ve just never hired Chinese,‘ John answered amiably with a laugh.

I laughed too, but I must’ve been subconsciously sending him full-on Asian vibes because John seemed to suddenly realise that I was one of those he ‘never hired’ and his laugh wavered into awkwardness.

But it was too late. He knew what he meant and I had heard what he said.

The reality of racism

It’s not everyday that you meet an actual employer who admits to being racist, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t offended in the least, but it got me thinking about some things.

Your name says it all

What’s the first thing employers know about you when you apply for a job? Of course, it’s your name. It spells out big and clear at the top of your CV, and you sign off sincerely with it at the bottom of your cover letter, hoping that whoever is reading it will remember this name for the interview.

Unfortunately, if you’re Asian and John was the one reading your sincerely signed cover letter, you wouldn’t even get past the first round of selection, your nicely typed up CV will not even get a second glance, because your name gives it all away. Even though we call ourselves Asian Australians, fact of the matter is, on paper with our names spelt out, we’re just as Asian as those living in China, or Vietnam, or Malaysia.

What’s in a surname?

As Shakespeare puts it, what’s in a name? Or surname, in this case. As it happens, there’s plenty that goes into a name. They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but I say its title tells you a lot about its content. Its genre, at least, can be easily known from a book’s title.

In much the same way, our last names reflect the ethnic group from which we are born. Surnames have long histories and most of them have heritage roots that date back to ancient times. It is no wonder that particular ethnic groups have last names that clearly identifies them.

Here’s a video from a personal favourite vlogger of mine, KevJumba, with the point on stereotypical last names (skip to 3:25 for the part on Asians):

You name it

Okay, so back to the cover letter scenario. It is certainly unfair that we aren’t given fair shots at a job just because our name reveals us to be from the ethnic group that the employer so happens to have a prejudice against, and unknowingly, we’ve been changing ourselves for them, not just employers, but everyone, including people we meet on the streets.

If your parents are from Asia, grew up there, chances are you’ll be given an Asian name, but how many of us have ‘English names’ now? Everyone, almost everyone.

English names

‘English names’ by my definition, are names that native English speakers can actually pronounce and spell. To prove my point, if you’re non-Asian, try pronouncing this without sounding like your tongue is twisted: Zhang Qing Fang. That’s a true-blue Chinese name for you right there, and fact is, no native English speaker has ever got it right, and they never will.

And that is why over the years, more and more Asians have bestowed upon themselves English names, for the sake and convenience of people who can’t repeat our names after us. It just makes socialising so much easier.

Anglicisation

And that, my people, is only the beginning of a life-changing revolution. As we enter university, then graduate, enter the work place, we meet professors, lecturers, managers, and other authorities above us who really are too busy to spare time to figure out names they can’t pronounce. Either you find yourself a name they can just shout out, or they’ll give you one.

If you’re Lee Deng Jun, you simply become Lee; if you’re Shin Seung Hun, you become Shin; if you’re Rajash Koothrappali, you become Raj.

Name of the game

It’s really no fault of ours, or theirs. In a country like Australia, everyone expects the next person to have a name they’ve heard before or can pronounce. Even when I meet other Asians or international students, I’m never surprised when they give me a non-Asian name.

We can change our names, give ourselves new ones, maybe even enjoy being given cute and chummy names by our Aussie peers, but there’s one thing we can’t simply change that brings us back to the point – our surname.

It is undeniable that because there are people like John out there, and because we do have prominent surnames, it might take us longer to book appointments over the phone because we have to spell out our names twice; the cute guy or girl at the party might get our names wrong; and you and I might get a few more rejection letters than the local Aussie next door.

Studies prove race matters when being hired

In fact, numerous social psychological studies in race and ethnic discrimination have shown that work applicants with non-Anglo-sounding names faced significant entry-level workplace discrimination. One study conducted by the Australian National University involved sending 4,000 fake resumes to Australian employers in response to job ads.

The fake CVs were identical but for the names of the applicants – the names were either Italian, Chinese, Arab/Middle Eastern, Indigenous Australian or Anglo-sounding, suggestive of the race and ethnicity of the applicants.

The results showed that:

Ethnic minority candidates would need to apply for more jobs in order to receive the same number of interviews [as Anglo candidates].^[1]

And found:

Clear evidence of discrimination, with Chinese and Middle Easterners both having to submit at least 50% more applications in order to receive the same number of callbacks as Anglo candidates. ^[1]

What this suggests is that even if we work as hard and have the same qualifications, we still face racial and ethnic discrimination when being hired for work, and that there exists very real, and unjustified, racial prejudice in our society. (Read more here.)

In the name of those before us

Through experiences of discrimination, and despite moments of annoyance and frustration because of our names, I would say that it is during times like these that we decide if we like being who we are. Our surname indicates a long bloodline of heritage, a symbol of our culture and where we came from. It is the signature of our DNA and a mark of history.

When you think about the thousands who have walked before you bearing the same name – great leaders, inspirational missionaries, or perhaps just a loving father – it humbles one greatly to know that we did not just fall from the sky or pop out from an egg. We came from somewhere, we belong to somewhere, and our surname says it all.

Don’t take your name in vain

Asians all over the world have compromised their traditional first names for English-sounding ones, just to fit into Western society and be a part of it, but our last names, our mark of identity, is something that we should never take for granted.

References

[1] Booth, A., Leigh, A., & Varganova, E. (2009). Does Racial and Ethnic Discrimination Vary Across Minority Groups? Evidence From Three Experiments. [Retrieved on 17 July, 2011.]