Blog Post 2: What's in a name?

What's in a name?

Names happen to mean everything to me, but that doesn't mean it is true for everyone else.  My name, especially my last name, shows where I come from and what group I can be labeled in.   I claim my name, and accept that it will always apart of me, so why would I try to change it?  In Croatia, and a lot of European countries, traditionally, middle names are rare.  When I get married, I will take my last name as my middle name and that way it will always be a prominent part in my name.  I come from Croatia, and my name is Czech, so it may contain an upside down carrot-like accent top that people don't know about, called a "caron". My last name is Čermin, and the accent above the C is very important in Czech, Serbian, and Croatian.

Americans tend to shorten words to make it easier for themselves, as we see with "refrigerator" moving to just "fridge."  We also can see how words can be pronounced drastically differently, such as how "colonel" is actually pronounced "ker-nel".  My father, upon immigrating to America from Croatia, decided to change the pronunciation from Čermin (Ch-ar-min) to Cermin (Ser-min), so Americans could pronounce it better. That little change takes away the whole purpose of the accent on top of the C, but I'll survive because it is small in the grand scheme of fitting into American societies.  Not many people in the western side of the world even know what that little caron on top of the C would mean, so it makes life a little easier since Americans can actually pronounce my name right (though, ironically, they still have a trouble in just pronouncing Cermin). 

Anna Quindlen's quote is an absolutely amazing idea on how we can be two things at once, and I agree with her thought completely.  By everyone having last names in the world, except technically not for the royal family (Prince William, Princess Diana, etc), everyone is claimed by a group or family forever. They can tie themselves to a person in history, or a certain important lineage. A last name is a window into the past, a secret only a certain sector knows.  However, everyone is so focused on being independent and being their own individual with their own freedoms at the same time.  How can one be two things at once and be socially accepted?  I believe in a balance of opposites in life and that everyone should be independent but always be able to fall back to their families or even their culture.  In the end, everyone should accept who they are, and incorporate that into their future.  If they aren't proud of their family or culture, they should replace that bad connotation with their name and turn it into something that they can be proud of.  Everything is about the balance of opposites in the grand scheme of things.

Blost Post 1: From the Archive

 

The photograph Uptown Parade, taken in Lake Street, USA (1997-2000), is a part of the album titled From the Archive.  Immediately the audience is drawn to the focal point of Wing Young Huie's  photograph, which happens to show a man of Asian descent, surrounded by men of apparent American descent.  The reader's eye moves directly towards the center of the picture, and shows that the Asian mad is standing in a line looking very confident about himself and perhaps of his origin.  He looks like he is doing his best to fit in with the society that he may not have been a part of from the beginning, and the picture shows an aspect of art being that he put the smallest man directly in the middle. 
In looking into a deep analysis of the colorless photograph, the audience can notice the differences between races and ethnicities.  In choosing the black and white filter for the picture itself, it shows how Huie may have wanted to get the race point across to his viewers.  The Asian man represents everyone that could be struggling to be accepted in this difficult society.  This can connect to Atwood's book, The Handmaid's Tale, because the main character, Offred, allows the readers to follow along in her horrific, senseless journey of trying to do her best to fit in a society where she may not be wanted completely.  The whole book is written with a hazy layer that is placed on top of a black and white story, where Offred trudges along being passed around in her society.  Throughout the book, there are numerous chapters that steer away from the main story and talk about how Offred wills herself to be strong and to go on the society for the future generations.  In the photograph by Huie, the Asian man stands tall for his future generations, just as Offred must stand tall for the hopeful future generations to come as well.