over the past few months on anitwt ive noticed a trend of non-asians adopting traditional asian names as aliases. obviously this doesn't seem harmful at first glance, but it's actually a form of cultural appropriation and can be very offensive.

(a thread)

in western countries, especially those that are english speaking, asians with traditional asian names are very often ostracized and ridiculed for having names that sound "too asian" or "foreign" or "oriental". our names can act as large targets for xenophobia.

because of this, many asians will change their names or go by aliases that are more western/anglo (aka more "english") in order to try and lessen the amount of racism we are faced with. and asian parents will give their children anglo names so that they will "fit in".

we change our names in an effort to conform to western society. sometimes out of personal preference, and sometimes out of necessity. in the past, asians have used western names in order to increase the number of opportunities available to them that were closed off before.

one of the most notable examples of this is when asian immigrants and asian americans (specifically japanese) would change their names during/following wwii to try and escape racism because of the mentality that asians were considered dangerous and treated like national threats.

in more recent examples of this, studies have shown that in canada, employers are 28% less likely to call someone with an asian name in for a job interview than someone with an anglo name, despite having the same qualifications.

in hollywood many actors and actresses are advised to change their names in order to get auditions, because traditional asian names "make casting directors uncomfortable" (ie chloe bennet changing her last name from wang).

so, for a non asian to adopt an asian aliases online is to ignore the struggle that comes with having an asian name in western culture. its to take a part of our culture, use it whenever you deem fit, then are able to later stop using it and not deal with the backlash.

to you it may seem insignificant and think its "just a name", but for asians it's not just a name. its /our/ names. our culture that shouldn't be treated as your aesthetic.

end.

so thats the end of the thread but i wanted to add some personal anecdotes as examples, so i'll put those under this tweet. you dont need to read these as they arent rlly educational or informative and more for me to express why personally i get offended

and also provide some more examples on a more personal/relatable level

so, as a lot of my followers know, lina isnt my given name. i dont use/state my real name online for privacy reasons, but i also go by lina in my day to day life as well. i didnt always go by lina. no one had ever called me lina before highschool. now its my preferred name.

growing up, my school district was k-8th grade and i lived in that district my entire childhood. it wasnt completely white dominated, but caucasians were the majority and asians made up one of the smallest percentages of the school other than native americans, pacific islanders,

and mixed ethnicities. in my classes there would be a few asians, but many of them already had anglo names that were their given names. my name, however, is a common malaysian name. even before i knew the significance, i went by a very butchered pronunciation because that's what

my teachers had called me. i didnt even know how to correctly pronounce my own name until i was in second grade, as i had always thought it was the way my teachers had pronounced it. i went by my given name the entire time i was in this school district.

when i was sixth grade, people started making fun of my race. i dont really know why, other than kids are mean and thats around the age where if you were different you were ostracized. it started by people calling me "lili" (pronounced lee lee) and by eighth grade many people

would call me lingling both to my face and behind my back. i acted like it didnt bother me but obviously looking back now it made me very uncomfortable because they called me that in order to demean me since they very clearly knew my actual name.

cut to the first day of highschool. only 30 out of 850 students in my eighth grade class went to the same high school as me, so it was kind of like a fresh start. its 7:30am, im sitting in a class full of white people (my hs was less racially diverse than my k-8th district),

and im really nervous because i dont know anyone. my teacher starts roll call and says that if anyone goes by a different name to tell her so she can write it down. she gets to my name and in a split decision, without even thinking about it at all before, i told her i go by lina.

no one had ever called me lina in my entire life. at the time i didnt realize why i did that but looking back, i was so tired of being made fun of for my name and for teachers to struggle through the pronunciation and people to giggle when a substitute teacher took attendance.

and when i was in high school, i found out that at work my mom went by nora instead of her given name. shes gone by nora ever since she moved to the us. i asked her why, and she said its because when she was in college, it was common knowledge that going by a nickname made it

easier to get a job. and getting a job means getting a visa, which means being able to apply for permanent residence. she changed her name to overcome the barriers set up by anti-asian racism in america.

you dont realize it but something as simple as a name holds huge significance to the daily treatment of asians. so please stop using asian names as your aliases if you arent asian. thank you

oh i also want to add, yes, this means you shouldn't use the name of the asian character you kin if you arent asian. even though you kin an asian character that does not mean you yourself are asian.