Say my name

Once upon a time, before every other baseball player from any Latin country had my same last name, people used to mispronounce it, most commonly referring to me as Jan Martin-EZZ (short e).

“Mar-TEE-nez,” I’d say, strongly accenting the long e sound. Being of a contrary nature, I never failed as a child to offer this correction with a strong voice and a haughty glare. “Mar-TEE-nez!” Inviting them to try it out on their own just to make sure they’d got it right.

From age 8, this was universal: parents of friends, teachers, Girl Scout troop leaders, men, women, other kids… I was completely nondiscriminatory in my pointing out that their mispronunciation was somehow discrimination, or at least blindness, to my culture. Maybe I didn’t say all that, but my tone transmitted scorn sub-textually.

Now my name is still occasionally mispronounced, despite baseball players and the increased US popularity of soccer. Nevertheless, there is still that inward cringe like the tiny, sharp, stabbing of kittens claws that takes hold. That chord of rigid anger that feels like steel cables, however fine, that I must repeatedly work to unravel. But now my response is softer. “Martínez,” I say, “like in baseball.”