'One of the greatest disrespects you can do to a person is not put the effort into somebody’s name.'
Speaking about how shows often tokenize South Asian characters, Maitreyi highlighted that South Asian people in America deal with their names being mispronounced on the daily. “A lot of people of color and the South Asian community [are] so used to being sidekicks, we’re so used to being comedic relief,” she explained.
The Tamil-Canadian actor also admitted she used to anglicize her name in an effort to appease English speakers because “Tamil names are super long,” before realizing that other people could just learn the correct pronunciation. “My entire full name [has] 20 letters, but I do have my friends at school that just call me Ramakrishnan and they pronounce it correctly,” Maitreyi shared. “When I landed in L.A., they were like, ‘How do you say your name? Sorry, I don’t want to mix it up.
“Names are so important,” Maitreyi continued. “I think one of the greatest disrespects you can do to a person is not put the effort into somebody’s name.” Maitreyi’s words will likely ring true to a lot of people, not only those from the South Asian diaspora living in America — non-English names are more often than not mispronounced in English-speaking environments. But aslast year, unfamiliar names aren't too "hard," they just take practice.
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