Living up to my name

My parents named Jesus (Part two)

This is part two of a story originally told on stage with “Truths Be Told.” Check out my previous post for part one.

Mexicans and Mexican-American’s actually dealt with this eternal-internal struggle of being named after the son of god. And you’re ahead of me if you look at the name in the URL up top. Truth be told, I don’t even go by Jesus much, I go by Chuy. My parents call me Chuy. Chuy is the nickname for any Mexican named Jesus. It’s like Bill to William. Only that diminutive makes sense cause you just take out all the letters after the second L and switch the W to a cute little B. People constantly ask me “How the heck do you get Chuy from Jesus?” 

The answer is kind of muddy but it doesn't matter because you see how that doesn’t at all help me when I’m going up the line at Starbucks. Chuy becomes Chewy. Spelled like something you spit out after its lost its flavor. Or worse: There is a romantic comedy that I swear only I remember called Fools Rush In.

Damn look at that multi-colored title and font combo.

Starring Salma Hayek and Matthew Perry. Matthew’s character is introduced to a Chuy and he extends his hand in greeting, “Chuy-Luke Skywalker.” And if you can’t do better than Chandler Bing then I don’t want to hear anything about Chewbacca, or Han Solo, or, and this is true, literal growls in response to my name.

So let’s recap. I’m in the line, and I’m mulling over my problem. I’m running through my names: Jessie, Or Chuy, or Ken. Or, and this is another complication, just plain Jesus. Because that’s a huge part of the struggle and it reminds me of this poem by Elisabet Velasquez: 

And that….is…gangster. And it’s totally something a poet would say! And I actually have a personal philosophy when someone tries to get my last name. If they’re trying to know me in that way then I’ll say Renteria and roll my R’s like it’s a tongue twister exercise.

But again-that doesn’t help in the line and with my problem. Cause we’re on a first name basis here and sometimes I want to challenge the status quo and sometimes when I’m picking which wich to write my name on at Which Wich, I just want to get out of there and not have a nuanced discussion about ethnocentrism with the kid paid minimum wage behind the counter.

So we’re at an impasse. Or. Maybe this is what this story has been all about. About who has the responsibility. Cause I’ve been talking about the minority’s side but I believe that the majority can work on it too. I mean-I think you guys already do that. How many people here learned to call it Gyro and not GI-RO. How many people do you know that take it upon themselves to learn the correct way to say yoga poses. I know people with books on it. Chatarunga and so on. Or rewind back to the beginning of this story. About San Diego and the Acai bowl place. Not AKAI like we all first said it. And this is the definitive proof that you all work on it. And this is real. While I was researching this story I came across this article, written by an actual University of Iowa student. Called “How to Pronounce Acai Like you Know What You’re Saying.”

It starts “Nothing is worse than giving the cashier your order and then hearing them repeat it, only to realize you pronounced the name wrong. Like, how embarrassing is that? You can't help but just smile and try not to turn beet red...vowing that you won't ever show your face there again.”

Now I don’t mean to put anyone on blast. It's a good article. Funny. And I learned from it. But last I checked there was not one Acai bowl in this area and a grip of people with names like Jesus or Chuy or Clemente or Elisabeth or Hussain and we want you to know about our problem, like you know about Acai and Gyro. And we want you to work on it, like you worked on AKAI and GIRO. And we want you to realize that maybe our problem, our eternal internal struggle, shouldn’t be so internal afterall.