Column: Adventures in Multicultural Living

“I’m not your ‘Mom!’” my girlfriend finally exploded at her kids.

The teenagers looked puzzled, “Then, whose mom are you?”

I know what she means, though. She does not want her children to call her the English word, “Mom,” but to call her by the Chinese term, “Ma Ma.” The dictionary may give the same meaning for both terms, but “Mom” does not have the same feel, the same nuance, as “Ma Ma.” My children are not allowed to call me “Mom,” either.

The question of how to address people often comes up in our family. I teach my children to always address adults as “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” “Auntie” or “Uncle” – never by their first names. In our local Asian American communities and in Hawaii, it is common to address one’s elders as “Auntie” or “Uncle,” even “Grandma” or “Grandpa.” It creates instant familiarity, instant respect, an instant family-style relationship where adults look out for children and children look up to adults.

However, this is confusing for other children who do not have this custom, who are constantly correcting my children: “She’s not really your aunt, you know.” We feel like such outsiders when this happens, like we are not wanted.

Sometimes this is confusing for adults, too. Recently, I introduced my son, Little Brother, to a friend of mine, “Uncle Joe.” My friend was taken aback, “Uncle?”

“Would you prefer Mr. Grimm?”

“Oh! In that case, ‘Uncle’ would be fine.”

As a child, I always felt very uncomfortable whenever Caucasian adults insisted that I call them by their first name, but I felt even more uncomfortable disobeying the adult. I never knew what to do. As an adult, I feel the same discomfort when Caucasian children call me by my first name, but I know for them it is a sign of familiarity and friendship, so I do not say anything.

However, when a Chinese American boy I know suddenly starts calling me by my first name, I have to stop him: “Look, you can’t call me Frances. It makes me crazy. Call me Kai-Hwa Ah-Yi.”

The boy actually looks relieved. “I didn’t really feel comfortable calling you that, either, but that’s the only name I know for you.”

“Ok, if you have to, you can call me Frances Ah-Yi, but you have to add an Ah-Yi (Auntie) to the end. And not only for me, but for all Ah-Yi‘s.”

I once heard Salman Akhtar, an Indian American psychoanalyst and poet, lecture about how he sometimes encourages patients to say what they need to say in their own language. Even if he does not understand that language, their meaning comes through much clearer than in their stilted English. He went on to say that although the word “Sweetheart” is fine, it simply is not the same as…and then came a string of the most beautiful words (in Urdu) that I have ever heard.

Even though I was simply sitting in the audience, I melted completely. That is the power of using the right name in the right language.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Ann Arbor and Hawaii. She is editor of IMDiversity.com Asian American Village and a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her website at www.franceskaihwawang.com. She can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.