I never really enjoyed the fact that my name wasn’t able to translate in polish. My mom is from Poland, and every few years we fly down to visit family there. My name doesn’t exist in Polish. It’s just Jackie. My name feels like a plain piece of paper, while my brothers have a piece of art with their names. Matthew is translated to “Mateusz”, and Danny is translated with his full first name, Daniel, which is pronounced with more accent, “Don-yell”. It made them seem more polish than me, even though I knew how to speak and understand more. My polish family pronounced my name as “Jeckee”. Why was it so hard to pronounce an “a” sound?. It made me feel like my name was a joke. 

        When it came to my extended family, my mom was very popular. Everyone knew her as the “party starter”, she loved to dance. At parties, she can dance with anyone in the room, and go all night until her feet can’t work anymore. In Poland, dancing was a big part of our tradition. When we went to my cousin's wedding, I was chosen to do a big dance with another person at the party. The host of the wedding called me up, and asked to say my name into the microphone. I said my name, and everyone looked at me as if I had a third eyeball on my forehead. In polish the host said “What?”, I repeated myself, and said my name. The host looked away from me, and glanced into the crowd, looking very confused. He seemed like he didn’t even want to try and pronounce my name. He then realizes that I am my mom's daughter, and just calls me “Mini Asia”.  My mom's name is Joanna, but translated it is Asia, pronounced as “asha”. 

        I didn’t care to speak up about my name being mispronounced, but deep inside I was really annoyed. The fact that the host of the party didn’t even want to try and pronounce my name bothered me, I found that disrespectful. Being called “mini Asia” wasn't that big of a deal. When being in Poland, I hated my name not being able to translate, and they made me feel even more bad about it, but being called Jeckee, was just something I had to accept. In my opinion, having your name being mispronounced wasn’t that big of a deal, because eventually, you get used to it. Especially for people who have never even heard your name before. I wonder what a different ethnicity would pronounce my name as?