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?”

Adriana Dominguez: How I Got into Publishing

Guest post by a literary agent, professional translator, online book reviewer, and Latino children's book expert

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Adriana Dominguez

English is not my first language, though this statement doesn’t ring quite as true now that I have spent most of my life living in the United States, speaking and working in English. But the fact is, when I arrived in the US at age 12, I did not speak a single word of it. I quickly learned to say the phrase “I don’t speak English” so fluidly, that folks often seemed to question the legitimacy of my assertion. Learning a language anytime after the age of twelve is difficult—as difficult as it is to be twelve in the first place! And so I believe that my fascination with reading and language emanates first from the fact that my mother read to me constantly from a very early age, and secondly, that I mostly developed my English language skills by reading lots and lots of books, often with a dictionary on hand to prevent me from getting “stuck” when I came across a term or phrase I did not understand.