Discrimination Based on Name?

Last night started off like another ordinary night. I wrote my 7pm Geography exam. Handed in the exam. Then we got our graded final essays back. I got a fantastic mark, this is not about me contesting the grade. I’m writing this because I found a comment on my essay that I was deeply offended by.

The TA wrote, “Grammar issues throughout– but I will not discount for because seem to be second language issue– but make better use of the writing centre to clean these up and improve!”

There is so much wrong with this comment. I will try my best to deconstruct why I find the comment to be racist. To further clarify, I am not accusing the TA of being racist. Please watch the following video.

I am offended that she i) assumed that I was ESL (perhaps derived from my obvious Korean name) ii) that she treated me differently based on the assumption that I was ESL

Let me elaborate:

i) I do not identify with the term ESL. I came to Canada at the age of 6. Although Korean is my “mother tongue”, I am way more proficient in English than I am in Korean. Just ask my Korean relatives who I wrote Korean Christmas cards to, they always have a great laugh at my inability to spell properly or to form correct sentence structure in Korean. I would identify with the term “Native English Speaker”. And for the record, in four years at UBC, no one else has ever accused me of writing like an ESL student.

ii) UBC should evaluate their students equally and fairly on all grounds, regardless of their ESL status. Foreign students are all required to take the LPI exam and I thought the whole point of this was to put everyone on even ground. If the TA is letting me cut corners because “I’m ESL”, I do not want those marks. If she thinks that they are legitimate grammar mistakes, she should have taken those marks off because I don’t deserve them. Then, I would have met with her to discuss those grammar errors and we would have had a discussion on grammar and grammar alone. In this case, the grammar errors that she mentions are not grammar errors. There is nothing grammatically wrong with the sentences that she circled. It is a mere writing-style preference.

This brings me to another point: How did the TA infer that “I am ESL”? I am assuming that she derived this assumption from my obvious Korean name. The header of every page had “Kyuwon Kim” written on it loud and clear. I have never met this TA. (This lack of interaction speaks volumes about the education system at UBC but that is a separate issue). I didn’t even have her email until now (I just emailed my Prof to get her email). Perhaps then it is not too unfair to assume that the reason why in four years no one had told me to go to the writing centre is because I am in the Faculty of Forestry. Forestry is a tiny faculty and this translates to smaller class sizes. I took a 400 level globalization course last year and scored the highest grade I have ever gotten in an UBC essay. Perhaps this is because the Prof knew me by name and knew that I was proficient in English. I am confident that if this essay had “Jane Smith” on the header, this TA would have never suggested “second language issues”.

Allow me digress on this name thing for a while. In my “History of Asian Immigrants in Vancouver” course we talked about names for a whole lecture. Asian immigrants chose an English name as a sign that they knew what to expect in the new world. They were making life convenient for their new neighbours by choosing a name that was easily pronounceable. The fact that I have only one Korean name and not an English name explains a lot about my personal history. My parents originally came to Canada to pursue their grad studies and the plan was to return to Korea after they were finished. Our immigration story was supposed to be a temporary one. But after the completion of their grad studies, my parents realized that it would be almost impossible for me to go back to the Korean education system—my Korean sucked, I would find it hard to fit in to the Korean culture. So we stayed in Canada. So the fact that I have only a Korean name can be explained by my family’s original plans for us to stay only a short while in Canada. That being said, I grew up embarrassed of my name, complaining to my parents to give me an English name. My parents responded by encouraging me to be confident and proud of my name.

This personal attitude change on my name has its limitations. I’ll be the first to admit that my name has become a barrier to socialization. Growing up in swimming lessons I was the kid in the class that got practice my front-glide last.  This is how it went: “Jimmy go, Amanda go, Eric go…. You (points to me) go!”. Even now as a young adult, introducing myself to people often becomes a horrifying experience. “Hey what’s your name?” “Kyuwon… like Q1.. y’know..” Try saying this in a bar with loud music… it’s a nightmare. But all humor aside, there is zero legitimacy in assuming that my foreign-name equates to me being ESL.

It would be convenient if everyone was John or Mary. But wouldn't that be so boring?

What disturbs me the most is that the TA does not see that her comment is discriminatory and offensive. She wrote it thinking she was being nice and understanding. For this reason I am excited to meet with her to tell her that I can see how she was trying to be nice, but really I find her comment to be inappropriate and offensive.

Thanks for reading,

Kyuwon Kim

kyuwon@interchange.ubc.ca