What's In A Name?

As a child, I hated my name. No one had ever heard of it and I had to hear it butchered constantly. The lunchlady told me every single day, "Have a nice day mytra" for six years! Eventually I stopped correcting her.It always immediately established me as someone who wasn't entirely American or white. It was just too foreign and I longed for a normal name like Katie or something. But as I've grown older and learned more about the origins of my name, I've grown to appreciate it. Mitra is a fairly common girls name in Iran. It is derived from 'Mithras,' who was an ancient Zoroastrian god. Mithras or Mithra is closely associated with the sun and with the sacred bull. He was worshipped as a protector of light, interpersonal relationships, and justice. That's a pretty cool backstory and I get lots of compliments on my unique name. Rather than being embarrassed now, I like the idea that my name sets me apart from others and is memorable.


My name was just one aspect of the conflicting cultural identity I have experienced in my life. This was most significant in elementary school. I was quite tan and had a more racially ambiguous appearance then. As someone in a mixed culture household, with an  Christian American mom and a Muslim Iranian dad, I often felt caught between two worlds.Not only was I stuck between them, but felt I didn't truly belong to either. No one at school, least of all the Caucasian children, could possibly understand the different ways we had grown up. But neither did the Iranian children. From second to fourth grade I attended Persian school on Saturday mornings to learn Farsi. The other children there were quite cruel to me and my sister. We were not full Persian and didn't belong there, in their eyes. Also the classes were mainly for kids who spoke Farsi at home and just needed to learn how to read and write it, which was not the case for us. So growing up I felt I was divided  into two halves, trying to conform both, and not really succeeding in either.

Photograph by Wing Young Huie, University Avenue Project (2007-2010)
http://photos.wingyounghuie.com/p929219206/h6cc35901#h617c9bfa

In this photograph by Wing Young Huie, four young girls working at a vendor are shown in the foreground. In the background is a couple walking laden with shopping bags in front of an auto shop. The young girls look into the camera lens while the couple is perhaps unaware of the photograph being taken. The girls appear to be of Hispanic origin and the vendor containing bags of vegetables points to them coming from the agricultural industry, possibly as migrant workers. It is very clear that in the photograph there is a divisive difference between the girls as workers and couple as consumers. These are their respective societal roles. While in most cases this would alienate and present the girls as 'others,' the format of the photo, with the girls all looking into the lens, has the effect of 'othering' the couple, who are white and would traditionally enjoy a more privileged role in society. The girl on the left side of the photo looks almost amused, as if she and the viewer are sharing a joke at the couples expense, further alienating them.

This is very similar to how Margaret Atwood presents the concept of otherness in her novel The Handmaid's Tale. The society she creates, Gilead, is comprised of strict social roles such as Handmaids, Eyes, Wives, and Marthas. Each has a very specific role, and no mobility to change said role. Again these roles do create oppression in the society, but in the specific narrative presented, that is not the tone taken, like in the photograph. So while Gilead's structure does create 'otherness,' they way Atwood wrote Offred's sarcastic tone actually succeeds in 'othering' the people with power. Offred's inquisitive and oftentimes facetious voice establishes her as a very different person compared to others in the book. Because they do not think like Offred, the reader sees them as 'other.'