“Esa no soy Yo”: Self-Image and Name Change from the Perspective of Female Immigrants

Abstract

The given name by which we call ourselves in our native language contains a series of phonetic, social, and cultural elements that determine its value in any given context. When people migrate, these elements change and, consequently, so does the individual’s self-perception. This research consists of an analysis of focused interviews with Peruvian and Chinese migrants carried out in Spanish and Italian. The most common phenomenon identified in the interviews was the use of names that do not correspond to birth names, either because they are not pronounced correctly or because—as in the case of most of the Chinese informants—the name was changed to adapt to Western standards. We attempt to categorize the nonconformity of the version of the name used by the host population and the emotional reactions that this provokes. The results demonstrate that there is a correlation between the desire to integrate into the host country and positive reactions to the image given to them by the foreign name.