I confess freely that I have a fondness for silly hats and blame it on my first name, Julie, which means “youthful.” In junior high, a friend called me "Ju," which was of course pronounced "Jew." "Do you mind?" she asked me. Why would I mind? In rural Kansas, we had never met anyone who was Jewish, and it never occurred to me that anyone would find the nickname in questionable taste. Strike one for the young Ms. Parham.
Better still, my mother used to label everything with my initials--J.A.P. I was fine with that. (And as a kid, it was definitely better than my sister's initials--P.C.P.) But it took me weeks to figure out why, in college, a new dorm-mate asked me if I really was a Jewish American Princess, and it was well into college before I noticed that when my grandfather, a World War II Navy veteran, talked about "Japs," it wasn't in a friendly fashion. Strike two.
“Parham” means “village of the pears.” How pastoral! Parham Park in Sussex, England includes a mansion and beautiful, expansive gardens. Lovely, except all of that house and all of that land means, once upon a time, slaves. (My ancestor John Parham, the one who sailed from the village of the pears in England to an equally pastoral plantation in Virginia in the late 1600s, who had five recognized white sons and perhaps dabbled in forced miscegenation, was definitely a slave owner. One of his grandsons dissolved the plantation, and the former slaves carried with them, among other things, the Parham name. Which is why if you travel to the South, to Virginia, Tennessee, even southern Missouri, the Ms. Parhams there--and yes, even the Ms. Julie Parhams, for they are there, you can see them on Google images--will all be black.)
What I did not know until last fall was that another Parham, perhaps a living relative of Johnny P., hopped a boat and sailed to Antigua.
I have no record of this, but I am confident it's true. The "oldest" colonial town in Antigua is called...you guessed it. Parham. It used to be the capital of Antigua. And you can't miss it. It's right on Parham Harbour.
Let's recap those three strikes. "Ju" and "JAP" and "Parham" : anti-Semitic, anti-Japanese, and white colonialist. Precisely how I try not to identify myself.
But those names were given to me. Let's talk about the name I chose: Ms. Parham. To use "Ms." is politicized, of course, but I like it. I've been told it makes me a crazy feminist. But the labels "Miss" and "Mrs." feel like an invasion of privacy. Must I announce my marital status in my name, so everyone knows, without even meeting me, if I'm "single" or "taken"? If I'm a wife or an "old maid?" If you're curious about my marital status, ask. Or see if I wear a ring. Or, better yet, just mind your business.
Whether or not those names reflect my identity is the stuff of philosophy. Can I claim as part of my identity the stuff I didn't choose: racist ancestors, sheltered childhood, naive parents? Much of that I'd like to reject. But I did not change my last name when I married--it's my name after all--so something about those choices-that-weren't-my-choices still belong to me. I do claim them, as problematic as they are.
But I won't be traveling to Antigua any time soon.
At 589 words, this post attempts to introduce you to my personality (appreciation of the playful and the problematic) and my point-of-view (I tend to see the world in terms of power relationships) by analyzing, riffing on, and examining my names.
ReplyDeleteThis is the fourth draft of this post. Earlier drafts included other stuff--like my sister naming me, the popularity of my name the year I was born, relationship between "Julie" and "Julius" and Shakespeare, how I was almost named "Margaret Jean"--but the earlier drafts were even more boring and didn't show-off my point-of-view or voice quite as well.