Names

 The idea of names - of people, places and things - is a compelling one. Naming something gives it meaning, significance and individuality, and indicates that the person who assigned the name has power. Knowing this, the characters in Song of Solomon came up with their own name for what was officially Mains Avenue, and why the whites  attempted to make sure "that 'Doctor Street' was never used in any official capacity," depriving the "Southside residents" even of the small liberty of naming their own street (5).

Our names are one of the most basic pieces of our identity and who we are. A person's name always has a story behind it, and holds generations of family history.

My first name - Iman - means faith in Arabic. It's a very common Muslim name, with many spelling variations (all different ways of transliterating the Arabic word). My mom said she knew what she wanted to name me since the very beginning; she picked it because she loved the meaning and the sound.

My last name, Manzoor, is my paternal grand-father's first name. It is a very common name in South/Southeast Asia. It is actually a word in formal Urdu meaning accepted, but as a name it means admired. 

There is power in naming, and each person/place's name has a story behind it. This is mine.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mouse Trap, Part II

Image
Why does Art Spiegelman choose to represent Jews as mice? The reason for this is that Jews were literally depicted as mice, representing that they were "vermin", in many Nazi propaganda posters.  " Rats: Destroy them " The chapter title pages stem from this sort of Nazi propaganda and are heavily symbolic. The above image is Chapter 6 of volume I. On the poster, the rat is depicted as having the face of a Jew. What appears to be a crumpled piece of paper lies beside the rat, to further emphasize how unimportant and filthy the Jews were thought to be. On the cover page, two mice (Vladeck and Anja) are standing in a literal mouse trap. This is the chapter in which Vladeck and Anja are deceived by the smugglers, which is what the trap represents. While the images are very different, there are similarities. The beam of light in the background of the cover page resembles the piece of paper on the poster.  Both images' title text looks somewhat similar i...
Read more

Let Freedom Ring

Image
When we think of freedom, we think of it’s literal definition, which, as defined by Google Dictionary, is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint”. Freedom to us means being able to do what we wish and not being under the command of someone else. To David Foster Wallace, however, freedom is something else. In This is Water he describes “the really important kind of freedom” as “[involving] attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over”. According to him, “That is real freedom” (5). Wallace describes freedom as living consciously and being aware of what’s going on around us. He describes freedom as having the ability to deter from our innate self-centeredness and having a mindset of empathy.  At first, I disagreed with Wallace. I agreed that living consciously, being aware of your surroundings, sacrificing and having empathy are ...
Read more

Perceptions

Image
vase or two faces? (Sorry about the font - I don't know why but I can't make it bigger.) Our perceptions and opinions about something can be drastically different from the reality. We forget that our perception of something may not be true, that there are many different angles to everything and we can only see one. We always feel entitled to establish our own perceptions about something and treat those perceptions as fact, even if we aren't able to fully understand the situation. The disabled mannequins, which were created in Sweden for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, were met with a variety of responses from the public. Most of the viewers looked at the mannequins with what looked like confusion or displeasure. My interpretation was that they believed that the mannequins made this way would offend people with disabilities and make them upset. This was the public's perception - that disabled people would feel that they were being mocked by su...
Read more