In a speech made by President Donald Trump just days after former President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential election, he referenced Kamala Harris’ name dozens of times, and mispronounced it every single time. Days later, at a Turning Point Believers Summit, Trump said that he “couldn’t care less” if he mispronounced it or not.
As the first South Asian and African-American presidential nominee, the pronunciation of Harris’ name has been a recurring target for her opposition. During the 2024 Republican National Convention, nearly half of the speakers who referred to Harris using her first name got it wrong. Bob Unanue, CEO of Goya Foods, referred to Harris as ‘Que-mala’ the first night of the RNC, translating to “so bad” in Spanish.
Watching as Harris’ name was mocked as a freshman in college last fall reaffirmed a disappointing reality for students like myself with non-Western names: the mispronunciation of your name without a second thought can estrange you from your greater community.
I’ve felt and seen a similar disregard for the pronunciation of non-Western names. Following the tragic death of Won Jang ’26 on July 6, 2024, the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge sent an email postponing a Lodge event in honor of Jang’'s death, in which his name was misspelled twice. During the same year in Kexin Cai’s memorial, administrators eulogizing her consistently misspelled her name.
These errors highlight the underlying systemic racism that continues to silently plague our campus. Names are the emblematic forefronts of our identities. When it becomes the norm to flagrantly disregard this identity, you are implicitly telling people of color that their identities are unimportant. To be clear: the problem isn’t with those who try, yet ultimately, say our names wrong. It’s with those who don’t seem to care.
This reality should not be the norm at a college that continues reiterating the importance of diversity, and yet, this is a reality I and many others live everyday on campus. While applying to Dartmouth, I was excited to join an environment I thought would embrace my ethnic background. I was shocked, therefore, when I attended my classes last fall to find that teachers would pronounce my name incorrectly without asking how to correct it, and students would avoid attempting to say it at all. A teacher even went as far as to ask whether my five-letter name could be shortened into a nickname.
Chimee Ejiogu ’28 said she shares a similar experience, sharing that because of the regularity of the mispronunciation of her name, it now feels like “second nature” for her to “brace” herself before waiting to correct someone else.
One main reason why our names are so often disregarded is notably the racial diversity at Dartmouth. Though the admissions team does a good job at ensuring that there is regional diversity across the United States, in the Class of 2028, only 16% of the class is international.
At its core, Dartmouth’s community is one that thrives off difference. While we continue to disregard ethnic names, we cease to thrive as a community. As a college community that is raising the next generation of leaders, it is imperative that the Dartmouth community makes it a norm to pronounce the name of friends, students, and peers.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
