That’s Not My Name.

I, as well as everyone who has (or borrows) a Netflix account binge-watched Tina Fey’s new show “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” a few weeks ago. Like most of Tina Fey’s endeavors (“30 Rock,” “Mean Girls,” “Baby Mama”), I enjoy the absurdist humor, the quick takes, and the memorable one-liners. And like most of Tina Fey’s endeavors, I always have to say “Why are our favs so problematic?”

In case you haven’t watched it yet, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is about a 30-year-old woman who, after 15 years, escapes a doomsday cult and decides to move to the big, confusing city of New York. Kimmy is strong-willed, smarter than she lets on, and brimming with optimism. It’s actually quite refreshing to see such a character so stoked on life yet not annoyingly so. Kimmy befriends a Vietnamese immigrant in her GED class. More importantly, he also becomes one of Kimmy’s love interests. That’s HUGE — I don’t know if I can count on my hands the amount of times an Asian American (male or female) was a serious love interest in mainstream media. However, his name gave me pause.

Dong is actually a Chinese surname, a Chinese ethnic group, the currency in Vietnam, the name of two of my friends. Dong is the name of one very unfunny Asian stereotypical character decades ago. Dong is also the source of a lot of dick jokes in “Kimmy Schmidt.” At one point, Dong tells Kimmy that her name also means “penis” in his language but does that really mitigate the casually, and yes, lazy, racism of Asian names?

Why is it that underrepresented people in media are always the butt (or in this case, dick) of some joke? Many people have debated whether or not this was Fey and her team of writers actually making fun of racists. I think they do a good job at poking fun of racists sometimes (Titus Andromedon is gay and black and realizes that dressed like a werewolf on his way to work at a themed monster restaurant — of course — that he is treated better than when he’s walking as just a black man). Making Dong’s name a joke though, isn’t poking fun. I think it is more racist, more serious.

In 2013, when Asiana, an aircraft, went down in San Francisco, I held my breath. I knew, historically, that any time a tragedy is in any way racial (as in, it isn’t about a white person), the tragedy becomes about how non-white it is. First there were the jokes: Asians can’t drive, therefore they crashed the plane. Asians have small eyes, therefore they crashed the plane. Did you hear about the one where Korean-Americans live in a culture of deference and that’s why the plane crashed?

The sad thing is I’m not surprised. What ended up being surprising was what followed: releasing fake, obviously racist “names” of the Asiana pilots on TV. Sum Ting Wong? Ho Lee Fuk? This was the juvenile playground stuff I got in 5th grade when white kids would pull their eyes back, bow at me, and say with an “Asian” accent that my name was Ho Lee Fuk because, get it? My last name is Lee.

The character of Dong plays into this. He is supposedly Vietnamese but he speaks Korean and acts stereotypically Chinese.

My parents gave me a Korean name, and I gave myself an English name. I can write an entire essay on the fact that my English name was inspired by a big red dog, but my Korean name, 정영재, means many things. Separately 영 (also written as 泳) means _____; 재 (載) means ____. 정 (鄭) has so much legacy behind it that it has its own Wikipedia page! Needless to say, my mom basically dictated my personality and interests before I even knew what I liked or wanted. But in all seriousness, by making fun of Chinese names (or Asian names and any “ethnic” name for that matter) is to Other me, is to erase my history, my culture, my language. Not only is it my history, but it’s the sad history of Asian American immigration.

According to Gary Okihiro, the founding director of the Center for Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, the mocking of Asian names dates back to when immigrants started arriving in the United States. "In the 19th century, many immigration officials who first greeted Asian migrants demeaned them, by first of all, making fun of their names because they couldn't pronounce them properly, or assigning them names like John Chinaman or China Mary," he said.

"Anything foreign seems to be open season or free game," continues Okihiro. When even a professional television news broadcast is airing this, well ain’t that the truth.

One of my best friends is Ethiopian American. His first name is Samrawit, but he goes by Sam because he can’t expect white people to pronounce it correctly. He’s told me on multiple occasions that sometimes he worries that people look at his resume, see his name, and just toss it because why hire a person of color, have to tiptoe around them and be politically correct when you can make it easy on yourself and hire a white person?

I have another friend who uses a fake name when giving her order at coffee shops. It’s easier than having them ask how to spell her actual name and then having them mispronounce it anyway.

No one has ever mispronounced my name, Clifford, before. They may misspell it, but it’s not as bad as a lot of my friends of color have it. My name has some privilege, and I don’t take it lightly. I love my name — I love how it sounds, how easy it is to sign. I have no plans of changing it. But I also know that my parents made a very conscious decision not to give me an Anglicized name. I know that my American name gives me opportunities that an Anglicized name would not. That’s probably why I hold onto my last name so intensely because it’s the only part of my American name that gives you a hint of my heritage.

When deciding on a title for this piece, I immediately thought of The Ting Ting’s “That’s Not My Name.” It’s a dumb, catchy song, but it is also one of the only songs that reminds me of Audio, this basement indie dance club in Brighton that I went to when I was in college and backpacking through Europe with friends. Without fail, that song came on every time I went. For some reason, a local girl decided to ask me to dance with her one time, and I said yes. This song came on. She asked me my name. I told her. She asked me where I was from. No, where was I really from. My name was not enough.