My parents gave me the name, María, and when I learned to write, my mother taught me to put a slanted line, not a dot, over the letter, i, in my name. Yet in school, what was a source of ethnic pride was erased. I distinctly remember my kindergarten teacher screaming at me, "That is not how you write the letter, i!" She made me erase the accent mark and replace it with a dot. That was when I became Maria. In school, the daily Pledge of Allegiance and celebrating the United States' Bicentennial in 1976 solidified my identity as a proud, flag-waving American. Around the same time,Ilearned that I was Hispanic, which was also a source of pride because myfather,a memberof the New York City Police Department, was President of the Hispanic Society. Later, I learned how controversial the idea of having one group to represent all the Spanish-speaking police officers was at the time. They came from many different countries, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and others, each with their own sense of ethnic pride, but now they were all Hispanic. I am not Hispanic anymore, unless I have to fill out one of those government forms that limits me to a series of bubbles that are somehow supposed to classify or identify me. Instead, I call myself a Latina and a scholarof color,atleast for now, until I can claim a better way torepresent who I am. My mother said she liked the name Lisa, a characteron a soap opera she watched, and she wanted to include a portion of my father's name Phil-thus, Felicia. At home, or with family and friends, I am called "Lisa," but in the seventh grade, I was called "Phyllis" because my social studies teacher, an older, White, southern woman, could not pronounce my name. I was one of the only African American children in the class, and it was only in this class and with this teacher that I was Phyllis. My story is similar to María's in one way: we were re-named, leaving wounds that have not totally healed. What does it mean to have a name that is not acknowledged by your teacher? As a teacher and scholar, I have become increasingly more aware of the identities of others and the power dynamics inherent in how we name and are namedbyothers.
