I’m not sure you can so confidently state it’s a ‘safety in community’ mindset.
New arrivals here on the forum often ask whether a particular Swiss town has an expat community when they are looking for a place to live.
I’m sure it’s not for safety reasons.
So he had more success when he tried to assimilate and took on a French name.
My brother works in employment in the US.
His best advice to job seekers hoping to get to the interview stage is to change their name from Tyrone or Destiny, to David or Mary.
A lot of the hostility likely comes from a warped sense of arrogance mixed with the uncomfortable realisation that their families had to leave their glorious homelands and move to the very civilisation they claim is inferior to their own.
Don’t talk so disparagingly about us expats
Would a company hire a person who started an application process with cheating?
It would also be apparent that, should the person be hired, their application documents don’t match with any ID docs they have to provide upon starting the job. Unless Tom’s brother means that people should legally change their birth name? That would avoid mismatches on official docs to a certain extent, although I can’t see this being standard advice from recruiters.
That’s precisely the cultural quirk: it’s not cheating.
It’s socially acceptable to put a name different to your legal name in your CV as long as you consistently use that name in the professional environment. The adoption of a USAfied customary name is seen as “willingness to integrate”.
Many recent immigrants do this without a second thought. I lived 1 year in Texas and it was curious to see all the students from China and India choosing their short, easy to spell, and English sounding customary names. My parents also choose a rather complicate name for me, but I just went for the shortened name my family uses. In spite of my personal experience of living life with a customary name, it was a bit weird to see a Chandashekar become George. Employer’s have no issues with seeing a name in CV and paying into a bank account with other name as long as the situation is explained.
The weird part here is that Tyrone’s family may have lived 2 or 3 centuries more in the US than the people discriminating this guy. Why is Tyrone still perceived as being too foreign? That’s a whole other thorny topic. I only wanted to tell the use of customary name is prevalent, no one raises an eyebrow about it.
It’s kind of a bit sad that it’s not socially acceptable to have a name that’s not “American”.
Hope that doesn’t infect Europe.
Calm down. No one’s changing their names.
The point he was making, which seemed pretty clear to me at least, was that people with an obvious black name had less chance of getting to the “consider” pile of applications let alone stand a chance of an interview.
There’s still a lot of racial prejudice in the US (and he works in a “woke” state).
Let’s face it people have to ‘cheat’ just to get beyond the AI screeners to perhaps have their CV looked at by a human. I hate it, but it is what it is.
Not too foreign.
Too black.
Right, I did not use the proper wording. It’s the thorny issue of racism.
Well…it’s something that it’s not imposed, it has to be accepted. And there’s people who want to embrace it with open arms in Switzerland:
On one hand, rejection is hard.
On the other hand, maybe it’s healthy to accept our own individuality. No matter what we do, rejection will happen one day even in my hometown, with perfect knowledge of local language, customs, and everything. Maybe, children born in a foreign culture don’t have this experience of clashing with your own home culture after you choose your own path. So, they still dream about fitting in after doing a few changes…if I conform it won’t happen anymore.
Barbershops discussion please
So, are barbers Swissifying their first and family names? Is anyone around here Swissifying your name?
What else is there to say? Immigrants to Switzerland complain about increasing number of barbershops run by immigrants to Switzerland. Some speculation that some of them might be dodgy, some of them do a better job for less money than the Swiss barbers.
My husband went to one recently.
It cost him less money but whether he did a better job is debatable.
It has certainly saved him money as it was so short he won’t need another haircut for a very long time.
The guy was called Dino and is a Turkish Kurd who speaks 5 languages, it’s a tiny place and whether it’s a legit business or a front for something dodgy who knows but hubby is happy enough with it to go back there next time it needs cutting.
My husband goes to such barber shop as well. He likes that they cut hair quickly and that he doesn’t have to make an appointment. He just goes to them spontaneously on the way from work.
I think it’s an interesting idea to allow people to change their names when they naturalize. None of us chose our name at birth, regardless of where we come from.
It was quite common for immigrants coming into the USA through Ellis Island to “Americanize” their names. Thus why president Trump is Trump, and not Trumpf (or Drumpf).
Interestingly enough, Wikipedia says that Trump’s grandfather initially found work in the USA…in a barber shop!