Repblica Bolivariana de Venezuela

Universidad Central de Venezuela

Facultad de Humanidades y Educacin
Escuela de Idiomas Modernos
Literatura Contempornea Norteamericana

A Name for my Name:

The conflict of identity in The Name I Wanted by Richard Blanco

Andrs Gonzlez

Caracas, junio de 2016

We define ourselves through the eyes of others. It is true that our

identity is constructed by ourselves, but the impact of the people around
us is decisive when it comes to answer the question who we are?. In
fact, a group of scholars define identity as the images of individuality
and distinctiveness (selfhood) held and projected by an actor and
formed (and modified over time) through relations with significant
others (Huntington, 2004). We may have no doubt whether we are
male or female, we might be sure about our age, we have traits that we
recognize our own and thus part of our identity: the color of our hair, our
eyes, the sound of our voice. There are other aspects of ourselves in the
identity-building process, however, that are not so easily to define. How
can we say, for example, what makes a Venezuelan? His sense of humor,
the history of his country, his problems and virtues? If we go asking on
the streets of Caracas exactly what is a Venezuelan, we sure will receive
a great amount of different answers, and probably none of them false.
Identity, in an upper level concerned more than just the individual,
is a social construct. It is build by a group of people who share more or
less the same features and characteristics. These individuals agree, to a
certain extend, to be part of a unity in a variety of levels: a small
community, a society, a nation. However, it is possible to find individuals
who reject their own identity, or even individuals that are not accepted
by a social group of a desired identity. Identity must be accepted and is
constantly judged by others. People can aspire to an identity, but not be
able to achieve it unless they are welcomed by those who already have
that identity (idem). Key terms like acceptance and rejection seem to
be the main underlying topic in the literature that is written in exile, by
the immigrant poets and writers who are forced to leave their homes
and build a new life in otherness. It is also passed on to the children of
those immigrants who, being raised in a particular country all their lives,
after time discover the differences between the color of their skin with
the one of their fellow classmates, or realize about the uniqueness of
their families when compared to other families in the neighborhood. That
is the story of Richard Blanco.
Like many writers of Cuban descent, he was born in exile, in
Madrid, but spend almost his entire life in America. With almost two
dozen awards and having read one of his poems called One Today at
Barack Obamas second inauguration, he is a leading figure in the
Cuban-American literature. After the inauguration he said to his mother:
Well, Mom, I think we're finally American. (Caroline, 2013). In his works
he explores his Cuban heritage and the struggle of being accepted in the
American society; not only because he is Cuban, but also because he is
gay. He is not fully American, but neither is he Cuban. His art flourishes

in the in-between, defying absolutes, but, at the same time, managing to

pull two different cultures closer. He develops with his poetry the
problems associated with the loss of identity. One of them being
rejecting his own. That is the main idea behind one of his poems called
The Name I Wanted.
The Name I wanted is one of the poems of Blancos third book of
poetry called Looking for the Gulf Motel, published in 2012 by the
Pittsburgh University press. In this work the Cuban-American writer
develops the complexities of identity. Charles Rammelkamp, a Blancos
work reviewer of the Pittsburgh University, gives us a summary of the
whole work:
The poems in Looking for the Gulf Motel are separated into three sections
that address the nuances of identity in different ways. In the first section,
poems deal with his identity as an American from a Latino background. ()
The poems in the second section deal with being gay, the confusion of
identity this involves growing up, in the context of a Latino family, but it
could probably be any family, the expectations of being male () The
poems in the third section are a bit more outwardly directed, in dealing with
family members, mainly his mother, but they implicitly address the
responsibilities and heartaches of being a son, a nephew, a cousin,
particularly as we watch those we love grow old and feeble (2013)
In The Name I Want, a poem that belongs to the second section as
explained by Rammelkamp, we see a Richard Blanco turned into the
main character of his own poem, in his own personae. The poem divided
into four stanzas of approximately five to eleven lines each, takes place
around a name the name the main character would like to have: Not
Ricardo but Richard (Blanco, 2012)
A name is the most important element of identity. It is said that in
the early days men appropriated the objects of their surroundings by
naming them. Once these objects are part of his linguistic constellation,
they are for the taking. The fact that the poem focuses on a name
reveals the desire of the main character to possess an identity. More
importantly, this desire means he does not feel satisfied with his own
self. He is rejecting his selfhood for the sake of being accepted by
another social group.
One may think that there is not so much of a difference between a
name like Ricardo compared to Richard; however, only the change of the
phonetic version of a name from Spanish to English shows us the
disregard of ones culture and overestimation of the other. Transforming
your Spanish name into its English version is being appropriated by

another cultured, disposing yourself of every trace that connects you to

your Latin-American origin.
The main character is Cuban, and rejects everything the Cuban
identity in his eyes stands for. We can see that when he expresses his
malcontent with the nicknames his own family has given him in the
second stanza, dedicated in its entirety to the names he does not want:
El NegritoLittle Black Boyfor my skin / the color of dry tobacco when
I was born, / or El Galleguitothe Little Galician, because / thats what
Ta Noelia called anyone like me / born in Spain, not a hundred percent
Cuban. (idem). Interestingly enough, this stanza serves us as a way to
elaborate a description of our main character of the poem. Through the
names he rejects, he is constructing himself and giving us a glimpse of
his past, his family, his experiences as a boy.
Through the poem we can see a variety of references of American
and British pop culture of the late 20 th century. Names like Richard
Burton, Richard Gere, and Richard Dawson, figures of popular TV shows
and movies full of the American aesthetics and sense of humor like
Family Feud. Even the name of president Richard Nixon, who being a
Republican famous for his stance against communism, reveals to a
certain extent how the main character depicts the American culture and
even its political beliefs. This attitude emphasizes the desire to pledge to
the ideals of the American living and its standards.
The conflict arises in the last stanza. You can change your name,
but you cannot change your past. In the last lines Richard the
character proudly proclaims himself Sir Richard Jesus White. The fact
that we see grammatical structures of modern English of the renaissance
such as thee reflects the yearning for the old Anglo-Saxon culture he
has in high esteem. We see a very similar reference to the Anglo-Saxon
culture at the beginning of the first stanza when referring to Richard
Burton, a British actor. However, at the end the character in a very
renaissance way describes himself as defender of my own country, /
protector / of my wishes, conqueror of mirrors, sovereign / of my
imaginationa name for my name.(idem). Here the main character
seems to accept the fact that the identity he is seeking is idealistic. He is
nothing but the protector of a country it does not exist, the one whose
culture he is trying to fit in; nothing but the conqueror of mirrors, for no
matter how hard he tries to look like an American, dress like one, act like
one, he would always be conflicted by the rejection of his own self;
sovereign of his imagination, for he cannot change reality; a name for
his name, a mask so he can hide his identity which, nevertheless, is
carved into his skin.

Sources:
Huntington, S. (2004) Who are we? Americas great debate. Berkshire: the Free Press.
Pringle, Caroline (February 6, 2013). Inaugural poet talks 'One Today'.
Yale Daily News. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
Rammelkamp, Charles (2013) REVIEW: Looking for the Gulf Motel, One Today,
and Boston Strong. Pittsburgh University Press

Blanco, Richard (2012) Looking for the Gulfs Motel. Pittsburgh University
Press