Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Marilyn Mei Ling Chin’s "How I Got That Name" is a powerful exploration of identity, cultural displacement, and the burden of inherited history. Written with a mix of irony, rage, and dark humor, the poem interrogates the complexities of being Asian American, particularly the ways in which names, family expectations, and societal stereotypes shape the speaker’s sense of self. Chin weaves together personal and historical narratives, confronting the contradictions of assimilation, filial piety, and the invisibility that often accompanies being part of a so-called Model Minority.

The poem begins with an assertion of self: “I am Marilyn Mei Ling Chin.” This declarative statement is at once proud and complicated. The speaker relishes “the resoluteness / of that first person singular”—suggesting a desire for clarity, for an identity that is firm and unambiguous. But immediately, she questions the certainty of existence itself: “without the uncertain i-n-g / of ‘becoming.’” This distinction between “be” and “becoming” reflects a deeper tension within the poem—between being fully defined and being caught in an ongoing, unresolved process of self-definition.

The story of her name unfolds as an act of patriarchal desire: “somewhere between Angel Island and the sea, / when my father the paperson / in the late 1950s / obsessed with a bombshell blond / transliterated ‘Mei Ling’ to ‘Marilyn.’” The reference to Angel Island immediately situates the poem within the history of Chinese immigration to America, recalling the experiences of many Chinese immigrants who faced scrutiny, rejection, and forced name changes upon arrival. Her father, described as a “paperson” (a term referencing fraudulent documents used by Chinese immigrants to circumvent the Chinese Exclusion Act), becomes part of this legacy of forced adaptation. However, rather than being shaped by bureaucratic necessity, her name is rewritten by her father’s obsession with Marilyn Monroe, a “bombshell blond” whose tragic life haunts the poem.

The speaker resents this forced renaming, recognizing that “lust drove men to greatness, / not goodness, not decency.” The Americanization of her name is not an act of reverence or love but one of misplaced desire, of erasing Mei Ling in favor of Marilyn. She is “a wayward pink baby, / named after some tragic white woman / swollen with gin and Nembutal.” This association with Monroe—who represents both hypersexualized beauty and ultimate self-destruction—imposes a burden on the speaker, linking her to a legacy of both fetishization and tragedy.

The tension between generations is palpable. Her mother, unable to pronounce “r,” reduces her to “Numba one female offshoot,” stripping her of even the flawed Westernized name. The mother’s identity remains tied to domesticity, “flanked / by loving children and the ‘kitchen deity,’” while the father, described as a “tomcat in Hong Kong trash” and a “petty thug,” builds an empire of chopsuey joints in Piss River, Oregon—a name that mocks the stereotypical Chinese American restaurant business and the indignities of immigrant survival.

Filial piety becomes a mechanism of social control: “Nobody dared question his integrity given / his nice, devout daughters / and his bright, industrious sons / as if filial piety were the standard / by which all earthly men are measured.” Here, Chin critiques the cultural expectation that respectability and virtue are measured through duty to family rather than through morality or justice. The notion that “integrity” is unquestioned as long as children are obedient suggests a suffocating tradition that prioritizes outward success over personal fulfillment.

The poem then shifts into a biting satire of the Model Minority myth. “Oh, how trustworthy our daughters, / how thrifty our sons! / How we’ve managed to fool the experts / in education, statistic and demography—” These lines expose the ways in which Asian Americans are stereotyped as hardworking, obedient, and apolitical—a stereotype that erases both struggle and individuality. The speaker acknowledges the transactional nature of this model minority status: “Indeed, they can use us. / But the ‘Model Minority’ is a tease. / We know you are watching now, / so we refuse to give you any!” Here, Chin flips the power dynamic, refusing to perform the expected role, mocking the assumption that Asian Americans must comply with mainstream expectations.

The poem’s cultural critique deepens in the surreal, absurdist passage: “History has turned its stomach / on a black polluted beach— / where life doesn’t hinge / on that red, red wheelbarrow, / but whether or not our new lover / in the final episode of ‘Santa Barbara’ / will lean over a scented candle / and call us a ‘bitch.’” The reference to William Carlos Williams’ “red wheelbarrow”—a symbol of poetic simplicity and significance—suggests that, for the speaker, life is not a romanticized vision of beauty but a chaotic, media-saturated existence where meaning is dictated by soap operas and racialized insults. The abrupt question—“Oh God, where have we gone wrong? / We have no inner resources!”—reads as both self-mockery and genuine despair, echoing a loss of cultural and personal grounding.

The poem then introduces The Great Patriarch Chin, an almost godlike ancestor who looks down and sees his descendants as “ugly.” The description of their physical flaws—“one had a squarish head and a nose without a bridge”—evokes both racialized scrutiny and familial disappointment. The speaker, “not quite boiled, not quite cooked,” is a “plump pomfret simmering in my juices,” caught between states of being, passive, awaiting “imminent death.” The proverb “To kill without resistance is not slaughter” reinforces a sense of submission, suggesting that assimilation and self-effacement are as much forms of violence as outright oppression.

The final section becomes an obituary of sorts, mocking both the inevitability of assimilation and the erasure of identity: “So here lies Marilyn Mei Ling Chin, / married once, twice to so-and-so, a Lee and a Wong.” The speaker’s identity is reduced to common Chinese surnames, as if her individuality has been lost to generic cultural expectations. She is “neither black nor white, / neither cherished nor vanquished,” existing in a liminal space, a perpetual outsider. The final moment of destruction—“when one day heaven was unmerciful, / and a chasm opened where she stood”—suggests that the weight of these tensions ultimately swallows her.

Yet, in the face of obliteration, the speaker does not resist or lament: “She did not flinch nor writhe, / nor fret about the afterlife, / but stayed! Solid as wood, happily / a little gnawed, tattered.” There is defiance in this ending—though consumed by forces beyond her control, she remains “mesmerized / by all that was lavished upon her / and all that was taken away.” This closing image captures the paradox of immigrant identity: to exist between gratitude and loss, between inheritance and obliteration, between assimilation and defiance.

"How I Got That Name" is a poem of contradictions—humorous yet tragic, self-deprecating yet angry, deeply personal yet politically charged. Chin crafts a narrative that speaks to the dislocation of Asian American identity, the weight of family expectations, and the suffocating stereotypes imposed by society. The poem’s brilliance lies in its refusal to resolve these tensions, allowing them to remain, like the speaker herself, both resistant and consumed.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...