SPARKS, Nev.—You would not believe the number of people who remarked on my last name at the Washoe County Democratic party convention on Saturday.
I've sort of become used to it. In my travels, many people who weren't prepared to interact with a Native were taken aback by my last name. A lot usually said something like, "So is Walking your middle name?" or "But what's your real name?" or the general favorite, "Did you earn your name?
Of course, the respective answers are, no, it is and no.
I guess it's kind of telling that these days, I wonder around without any specific ethnic self-identity. I'm a spoiled child of the revolution. What revolution, I'm not sure, but its effects are that I think of myself as no different than a white person or an African American or anyone else in America. And then, boom, it hits me like left hook, "One of these things is not like the other."
So far, the only people who've commented on my surname have been pretty harmless curious folk. Which, I am grateful for, believe me. But some days, I just wonder what the hell would happen if I legally changed my name to my Indian given name. That'd throw them off track, but proper. For the record, my Indian given name is Hoyeki Yapi, meaning, "Calls for Him."
People would fluster themselves on how to pronounce it, then the question of whether it's my first or last name, how did I get it and what does it mean. The answers would be, just like it's spelled, yes, my daddy gave it to me and do you really want the long story of its etymology?
Over the years, I've pretty much reconciled myself to living in two worlds. Living in an urban setting helps. Most of the time, the biggest identity crisis I go through is wondering whether I should get my latte at the Starbucks around the corner, falling into the urban trash group or at the independently-owned coffee shop, along with the non-conformist hipsters.
It's an ongoing theme in my life, dichotomy and being too much of this, not enough of that, it happens to all of us Natives at some point. And I've generally made my peace with it.
But really, do you think Kwesi Mfume gets this much attention in the grocery store line when he pays with his bank card?