858: from BOOK OF THE OTHER

Today’s poem is from BOOK OF THE OTHER by Truong Tran.In this episode, Major writes… “Names carry family histories, maybe even indicate what region of the country we reside in, or from where our ancestors traveled. This is why it comes as an affront when someone fails to learn how to say our name or worse, makes up a name for us, like my fourth-grade teacher who, instead of learning to pronounce the “ethnic” names of her students, renamed all of us after French painters.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp