Be Some Other Name

O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

I recently heard Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas on On the Media with Bob Garfield talking about why he feels it is important to rethink and revise the nomenclature used to describe immigrants lacking the proper paperwork to live and work in this country. (Vargas “came out” as an undocumented immigrant in the New York Times Magazine in 2011.) Most media outlets, and indeed most people, use the term “illegal immigrants” or “illegal aliens” but Vargas is advocating for the use of “undocumented immigrant” because he finds it to be a more accurate term. In the interview he said, “My beef, such as it is, with the term “illegal immigrant” and “illegal alien” is the fact that they’re inaccurate and imprecise. To be in this country without papers is actually a civil offense, not a criminal one.”
 

Bob Garfield did not seem entirely convinced (you can read the transcript of the full interview or listen to the audio to get your own take on the exchange) and his push back led Vargas to articulate another aspect of his argument, one that resonated with me a great deal. He said, “Actions are illegal, not people. Can you imagine, like, hearing this word “illegal” and knowing that it refers to you, what that does to somebody?”

Bob Garfield questioned whether word choice was really the most important battle to be fighting in the discussion on immigration.
 

(He also questioned whether “undocumented” would take on negative connotations over time and become a pejorative term just as “illegal” is now. Mr. Garfield is right, the baggage attached to a word may indeed grow and become burdensome over the course of time, but that is a facet of our living, changing, and vital language. We've often seen terms go the other way—from offensive to reclaimed by a group. But that’s a whole other discussion.)

All of us in the children’s literature community engage with these questions daily. And even if we’re not addressing issues of semantics directly, we all believe in the power of words—to transform, to educate, to define, and to limit—right?
 

Words help us organize our thoughts and understand the world around us. Names carry with them a sense of identity and history. The act of defining oneself, of denying the name others project on your and proclaiming your own identity, is a way of expressing independence, humanity, personhood. And American literature for adults and children has addressed this theme again and again. The examples of Kunta Kinte (who refused the name imposed on him: Toby) in Alex Haley’s Roots and Maria Isabel (who finally stands up to the teacher who has decided it would be easier to call her “Mary”) in Alma Flor Ada’s My Name is Maria Isabel immediately come to mind.

So what do you think of this debate? Is this “just an issue of semantics” (something that is often said so dismissively, although I’m guessing many linguists, literary theorists, and philosophers might take issue with that turn of phrase) and have organizations who wish to drop the I-word gone too far or is this discussion of denying a person’s humanity through the power of language central to not just the immigration debate but to questions of how we address all “outsider” groups?