The article explores the author's struggles with her identity upon getting married and changing her last name. Torn between maintaining her heritage and conforming to societal expectations, she begrudgingly adopts her husband's surname while reflecting on her experiences as a multiracial individual in both America and Japan. The author highlights feelings of being an outsider, demonstrating how names and identities play crucial roles in societal belonging and acceptance. The piece poignantly examines how the choices we make regarding our names can affect personal identity and connections to culture.
If I didn't adopt my husband's surname, I'd be branded the worst kind of F-word in a conservative community: feminist. So, I eventually, if begrudgingly, complied.
In Japan, introductions begin with family name first: Shiozawa Arison desu. The look on Japanese faces as they analyzed mine... was a look that was all too familiar.
The confusion is similar... the message is the same: You don't belong here. Perhaps it's human nature. People like to put things in boxes.
But the idea of a white man taking a Japanese surname when I had three brothers to carry it on - as though that would be the only valid reason to consider it - seemed absurd to everyone else.
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