It’s best we start with my name. There is so much in a name; the letters, the culture, the family, the history. If there are few letters, you are easy to remember, like a 4-digit code. If there are too many letters, it is considered “unusual” or “ethnic”, and people will likely shorten it somehow anyway, with or without your permission, much like those who carelessly begin an email with “Hey M” or “Mic”, even though you never gave them the slightest inkling you preferred this to your full name.
However, my parents thought it best to name me: “Micaela Teresa Valdes”. On paper, it doesn’t quite present any issues, but looks can be, and usually are always, deceiving. My American mother told me she was nearly 8-months pregnant with me when she found herself at home watching an episode of Star Search in their one-bedroom, high-rise apartment on Boyton Avenue in The Bronx. A baby girl name wouldn’t have been her first priority considering that she never intended on being a mother, let alone swollen with pregnancy expecting a child in less than a month. The name was “Micaela” (pron. Mee-Kye-Aye-La). I know, you didn’t see that one coming; not to be confused with Michaela (pron. Mick-Kaye-La). She told my father about the name, likely mispronouncing it, since my mother to this day cannot say my name correctly. I always chuckle a bit at the irony. However, my father was Cuban and it fit into his mouth like the perfect puzzle piece completing his family portrait. I was his “Micaela”. He loved the name. During my childhood, my father and his mother, my Grandma Carmen, were the only people I can remember who could say my name with easy, and most importantly, like it was a normal name.
Since birth, I’ve been called Mickey, like the mouse, by everyone in my family – with most of my mother’s family calling me “Mick-Kye-Ella” on several occasions; Hopper, was my father’s nickname for me; my cousin Jeanine called me “Mica” (pron. Mee-ka) from the beginning; and finally I submitted to American conformity, spending all of middle school and high school with my alter-ego, “Mick-Kaye-La”.
Yet and still, that submission couldn’t save me from decades of painful attempts made by well-intentioned teachers, principles, intercom announcers, softball coaches, basketball coaches, camp counselors, friends’ parents, graduation officiants and baristas who questionably squeezed out any number of syllable sequences that start with the letter “M”: “Michelob”, “Mikalala” or “Mickey-ella”, “Macalela”. I was often impressed by the creativity that can emerge over the confusion of a seemingly ethnic, seven-letter name on a little chubby, black girl who doesn’t really look “hispanic”.
Yes – throughout my childhood, I’ve had several names until finally deciding on an appropriate one in adulthood. In college, I became enlightened and pumped up with a “take me as I am” India.Arie spirit that I just went back to “Mickey” but I changed the spelling to “Mikki” to make it more edgy. But, people still chose to spell it however they saw fit, like “Miccki” or “Micki” or “Micci”. I guess the “c” in my name really confused them?! Once I began to work in the professional world after college, that name just felt too immature. I couldn’t stand the sound of being summoned by my boss with such an adolescent nickname like Mickey. It felt sugar-coated with patronization. It was no ones fault, but I felt small in every email, in every meeting and in every assigned task. Several bosses thought it would be a good idea to guess how to pronounce what they called “my real name”, which was always noted in my email signatures or displayed clearly written on my work badges. “Wait don’t tell me…is it Mi-chella?!. No, I know, it’s Mik-ela, right?!” they’d say. “No, it’s actually pronounced Mee-Kye-Ay-La”, I’d softly respond as if hoping not to offend them. “No, it’s not. It can’t be. It looks like Michaela. You know, Mick-Kaye-La.” And we were back to this…the audacity of Americana culture and my inability to shake my high school alter-ego. I became more embolden with age and began to say, “No, that’s not my name or how it is pronounced.” I’d tell them it was a Latin-based name and that there was even a great salsa song by Pete Rodriguez called “Micaela” as if to normalize it, making it a cultural curiosity.
While working as a Producer at Amazon LIVE, I once engaged a fellow co-worker, who identified as a Jewish-America Princess, in a debate over the legitimacy of my name’s pronunciation. Yes, wait there’s more… In the open work space we all shared, on-lookers were both horrified and intrigued by her coy boldness in correcting me on how my name is really pronounced until finally she asked me, “Well, what does your husband call you??” to which I coyly replied, “Baby Cheeks.” The room broke out into a laugh of relief that I had now ended her silly debate, with an equally silly rebuttal.
While I realize my name often trips the tongues of people in the United States, it shouldn’t be my burden to indulge anyone’s apathy of culture. Many people have sliced and diced my name into so many pieces despite my efforts in offering them numerous amended versions. Yet I finally realized, why do I still have to shorten this name of mine into four or five bite-size letters – “Mikki” or “Mica”?
Yet, here it stands – I’m still torn between the two. I have debated my name, defended my name and mix-and-matched my name over the years so many times, never getting any closer to discovering who the person was behind it. It may seem inconsequential to feel burdened by the mispronunciation of a few measly syllables. But, I offer this – as I grew, I had no idea who “Micaela” was or how to proudly own those seven letters. I had customarily shifted and twisted my name for so many people that I lacked any identity behind any name I’d ever been called. Let that sink in…
It was this realization that emptied me one night laying alone in bed wondering how and why a 35-year-old woman could come so easily undone by negative words, thoughtless gestures or even the bitter indifference she perceived from those closest to her. Where did this begin, this feeling of unshakable invisibility. Who was the real “Micaela” and will she please stand up?! Who was this chameleon that learned at a very young age to shift her identity and make room for everyone in her life to feel comfortable? Why didn’t anyone give her a sense of self or should she have been born with that? Why did life slap such a complicated name on such a simple, unsuspecting soul?
To be human, is to be flawed, wabi sabi. Your flaws are innate honesty. The path to questioning my soul’s identity and “sense of true self” led me so deep into my own thoughts and past experiences that I had more questions than answers and more confusion than clarity. These relived tales must be vocalized in writings. My relationships, sanity, weight, career and self-esteem have all slipped in and out of my control, relentlessly.
In the end, what can we really base our identity on – what’s behind our name…? Take a long look back, our stories are the treasure maps which will lead us to the answer. And this, is how I plan to find my unlabeled identity.