曦曦 (Xi Xi)

Petals and Populace | Mixed Media by Rylee Schaar

曦曦 (Xi Xi)

by Ashley Xing

There are approximately 300,000 Ashleys in America. Yet, during the first few weeks of my life, there were about 299,999. I was born with the name “Xi Xi,” which in Chinese, means “morning sunlight.” An extremely rare Chinese character with a whopping 22 strokes, the odds of any average Joe knowing its meaning is next to nil. Similarly, the odds of any American knowing how to correctly pronounce it are slim. Though the most common pronunciation is “Zi Zi,” my favorite, by far, is “Exi Exi.” Realizing that my extremely Chinese name might not bode well with the terrors of American public school, my parents hurried to a Baltimore court and changed my first name to Ashley and my middle name to Xi Xi.

For me, the name Ashley represents losing sight of my background. Though America is known as a salad bowl of cultures, it feels as if the inevitable fate of all Americans is to melt into the standard. While immigration has made America the beautiful blend of diversity that it is today, with every day spent in this country, immigrants and their families slowly begin to lose their past. As an insecure elementary schooler, I always cringed in embarrassment when hearing my middle name. I have already lost most of my Chinese speaking ability, and I find myself sitting on my phone during family reunions. Sometimes, I wonder if 10th generation Chinese Americans would still consider themselves partially Chinese, and if they would still eat mooncakes for Mid- Autumn Festival.

Don’t get me wrong, I am proud and honored to be privileged enough to call myself American. However, I can’t help but feel that my renaming catalyzed the spiral of forgetting my Chinese heritage. Over the past few years, I have endeavored to be true to my roots. From remembering to eat noodles on my birthday to taking Chinese at school, my efforts to be more mindful of Chinese culture have not been fruitless. Yet, my name serves as a permanent reminder of how, no matter my efforts, there is no fighting entropy; my whole life will progress as a gradual migration towards being more American and straying away from Chinese culture.