What Trump Is Doing When He Mispronounces “Kamala”

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a “difficult” name.

I use quotation marks because, of course, my name has never been difficult to me. And it’s never been difficult to my parents, who are responsible for my name in the first place.

No—I learned that my name was difficult gradually, over time. That framework developed quite early on, dating back to my interactions with other people in my predominantly white hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. Many of my clearest memories from childhood and adolescence involve someone, somewhere, struggling with my name in some manner.

There were the various teachers taking attendance at the top of class, pausing with palpable discomfort when landing on my foreign name, perplexed and unsure how to proceed.

“Is this, um, Muh-KAI-tah? MAH-ket-ahh?”

Maybe they’d keep trying in vain, all while actively apologizing for “butchering” my name. I often imagined them taking a meat cleaver and whacking away at the fleshy parts—the tender M, the ripe vowels, the tough K at its heart, which anchors the whole thing.

“It’s Mee-KEY-tah,” I’d eventually explain, first defensively, then assertively. They would continue to mispronounce and misspell my name anyway.

And that phenomenon never really stopped. Today, I confront near-constant errors in daily life, whether it’s incorrectly typed at the top of emails (my name is in my email address) or scrawled by a barista along the side of a coffee cup (I spelled my name out, loudly and clearly).

Some may find name misspellings and mispronunciations relatively inconsequential. But as a multiracial woman born in the United States to immigrant parents from two different cultures, I know there’s nothing inconsequential about it.

Our names quite literally identify us. In many ways, they legitimize us because they are our primary markers of identity. We lead with our names and everything else comes after.

For immigrants and multiracial individuals in particular, our names—both given and inherited—are often a crucial entry point into our tapestry-like histories. These are beautifully woven, impossibly intricate histories that we have few other connections to. Our name is both a thread and a lifeline. Our name is where our story begins. And it deserves respect and reverence.

That means intentionally and repeatedly refusing to say one’s name correctly—regardless of how “difficult” it may be wrongly perceived—is a direct assault on that person’s very legitimacy and right to take up just as much space as anyone with an Anglicized or Westernized name. Willfully complicating the name’s pronunciation or questioning its ethnic origins—as happened during Barack Obama’s presidency and Donald Trump’s ongoing obsession with the birtherism lie—is a calculated tactic rooted in blatant bigotry.

We are witnessing such an assault on cultural identity take place in the wake of Kamala Harris’s entry into the 2024 presidential race. Naming something (or someone) gives it (or them) power. Not naming, therefore, does the opposite. Each time Trump and his supporters refuse to say Harris’s name correctly, it’s an intentional undercutting of her right to exist wholly and authentically. She is the American-born, Black child of Indian and Jamaican immigrants who also happens to be an educated, experienced woman running for the nation’s highest office.

Her multidimensionality is beyond Trump’s comprehension. And it’s driving him even madder than he already is.

One summer not long after graduating college, I worked a part-time job serving cocktails at a luxury resort in Tucson, Arizona. At the time, I barely made enough in tips to cover my essential monthly expenses: rent, car payment, student loans. On one occasion, a patron, eyeing my name tag, asked, “Where are you from?” I answered as I always did—and, for the record, still do—by saying, “Nebraska.”

He ordered another drink and then proceeded to rattle off a list of countries, including Japan, Russia, and others I can no longer recall. It quickly became evident that he felt entitled to this information about me and my racial identity. He needed to be able to neatly classify me into whatever preconceived categories he had in his head. Not being able to do so made him less powerful, less in control. And men who don’t feel in control are unpredictable at best and dangerous at worst.

The Trump cult has clear issues with capable, intelligent, in-control women. So their poor plan of attack involves dismissing her credentials, relegating her to “DEI hire,” and critiquing nearly every aspect of who she is, from her Blackness to how she laughs to—yes, even her name. They mock and feign ignorance about its proper pronunciation at rallies and in television interviews. It’s a pathetic attempt at not just minimizing her name, but also minimizing her rapidly growing political power and influence.

And they know exactly what they’re doing.

I appreciate and value my unique name, and have come to accept a few truths. For one, my name automatically signals a sense of otherness. My name means I immediately stick out. My name means I will inevitably be subjected to a line of questioning that I can only characterize as a cultural inquisition: “How do you spell that? What does it mean? Where are you from? Why are you here?”

When your name is constantly called into question, it can feel like you’re forever having to prove your right to simply be. Compound that with classism, racism, sexism, and every other -ism in the dictionary and, well, navigating one’s identity as a multiracial woman in 21st century America morphs into a marathon with endless hurdles and no finish line.

The world tried to convince me that my name was difficult, complicated, foreign, strange. And when that’s the message you continually receive, it’s as exhausting as it is confusing. There’s pressure to perform and conform, all at the same time. For Harris, that looks like others policing how she embodies her Blackness and multiracial identity, while simultaneously expecting her—and her name—to fit nicely into the categorizations they deem acceptable or palatable.

Balancing along the tightrope of multiracial identity in America is an imperfect, ongoing effort. There’s a deep desire to belong despite being born to stand out. But thankfully, our names—rich and ripe with meaning and purpose—anchor us to the past while providing a platform of possibility for the future.