Undergraduate / Cultural disassociation through my name change [3]

(I plan on submitting this for apps that have the prompt, "Describe an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it." Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!)

identity crisis

"Hui Ting?"
"It means able and strong minded in Chinese."
"That's too complicated. She should be named Carol, like Christmas carol. She should have an American name. I'll call her Carol instead," my new "American" neighbor told my mother.

I was two months old and already facing an identity crisis.
My neighbor's dialogue foreshadowed how I'd grow up-denying my roots to embrace "American" culture. I grew up in -------------, a neighborhood predominantly made up of native-born Italian Americans. My family was the first Asian-American family living on our block, a small roundabout lined with connected, brick red homes.

My elementary school reflected the racial demographics of my neighborhood. There weren't many people that looked like me-straight black hair, eyes resembling soot, yellow-undertoned skin. There were even fewer people who had a name like mine-funny and hard to pronounce. I knew I was different from the others, and it probably contributed to my shyness in school. But more importantly, it was what incited my feelings of resentment for the cause of why I stood out from my peers: my Chinese heritage.

Upon realizing this, I began straying away from Chinese cultural values and traditions. I stopped going to the Buddhist temple with my family the morning of Chinese New Year. I spoke English to my non-fluent parents when we weren't home. All because I was afraid of letting others know I had a side to me that wasn't "American".

I decided to legally change my name to "Carol Lin" the summer before sixth grade. I wanted to begin middle school free of the ridicule and frustration from having a name that was never understood or pronounced correctly. My mother granted my wishes, but felt a sense of betrayal that I didn't recognize until later. Changing my name symbolized losing an official part of my identity: the Chinese one given to hopefully pass on the qualities that it meant-able and strong minded.

I realized I wasn't either of those characteristics. I hid from my background in fear of being different from those around me, and pretended to be someone that I wasn't. My parents sacrificed their comfort to come to an unfamiliar new territory in the hopes of giving their child a more prosperous future, not knowing that she would deny her roots for most of her adolescence.

I have only begun taking those roots back-taking Chinese lessons, learning about my culture back home, visiting the temples again. The desire to abandon the culture my parents were so proud of began diminishing. Being American encompasses the quality of identifying with a place one is truly from. Without my cultural identity, I would have no traditions or ways of living that were my own, that defined who I was.

Four years ago, I went through the process of changing my name again, this time placing my birth-given name in the middle. I am now Carol Hui-Ting Lin, an American born Chinese.