My Name

As part of my getting-to-know-you writing activity this school year, I asked my students to read "My Name," a vignette from Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street. Personally, I really liked the book but I don't have the luxury of time to have my students read the entire book so I settled with just a vignette.

Since I like the vignette so much and since I asked my students to write their own version, I have decided to make one myself because teachers should be models to their students too. So here it is:

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In Greek, my name means good victory. She conquers. Happily conquering. Well, I believe that's what I have been doing to my life. Silently and steadfastly going towards victory. My name is like a happy smiley because it starts and ends with an "E." And of course, when one pronounces the letter "E," one has to be smiling or showing one's teeth. However, happiness in my life is not the jovial, loud, celebratory fiesta type of happiness. It is more like a vine that creeps and climbs silently up to the sunlight.

When someone pronounces my name, he has to pucker his lips up to pronounce it. The "Eu" in Eunice is pronounced as "Yu," like unicorn or uniform. Now, when someone pronounces my name like that, he would probably not think about happiness or victory or vines creeping towards the sunlight. Rather, he might think of a sunflower at dusk with its head limping on its stalk, which is far from the image of success. But that's just like me. I might look like defeated or dejected at times. But when the time is right, I am like the sunflower at noon smiling back at the sun.

It was my grandmother who gave me my name. She was a strong woman who had so much pride and so much breath in her lungs that she could talk for hours on end. If one fortuitously came by my grandmother's house, he would be entrapped there for days listening to my grandma's war stories and love stories. Looking back, although I was annoyed by my the repetitious quality of my grandma's stories, without it I wouldn't know so many things about her and our family. She's the exact opposite of my grandfather who used to just sit on a corner with his face buried on some newspapers.

If it wasn't for my grandma, I wouldn't have known that she had named me after Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of JFK. My grandma must be a fan of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Well, I was certainly impressed with her famous quote: "You are the stars and the world is watching you. By your presence, you send a message to every village, every city, and every nation - a message of hope, a message of victory." It's as if she was proclaiming her name - our name - into the world. EUNICE, EUNICE, EUNICE! Go and conquer the world! I have inherited Eunice Kennedy Shriver's name and I want my name - our name - not just to be a name. I want to live the meaning of it. I want to show the world that this quiet, meek wallflower can become a magnificent sunflower at noontime, standing tall and proud for the world to see.