A lot, apparently. Especially when you’re a white woman with a Zulu last name.
When Langa and I got married, I took his last name. I guess for all my liberal ideas, I’m still a traditionalist at heart. I wanted to have the same last name as my husband, and the same last name as our children. I considered the double-barrelled approach (Gentile-Mchunu) but it just seemed like a lot of work, so instead I became Jaime Clare Gentile Mchunu (Clare and Gentile both becoming my middle names because both have sentimental value). It turned out that the 4 name approach also require a lot of work, including an extra line on my driver’s license and THREE failed attempts by the US embassy to get my name right on my passport (I have three extra passports now, all with different varieties of Jaime Clare Gentile Mchunu).
I’ll be honest, I went through a bit of a mourning phase when I transitioned from Gentile to Mchunu; it wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be. When you spend 26 years introducing yourself by one name, there is a feeling of loss to suddenly identify yourself by another name. And even more than that, I was now identified by a last name which is ethnically different than mine. It is a traditional Zulu last name. I’m struggling to find the words to explain how this feels. I wonder if my German grandmother felt the same way when she married my Italian grandfather. Did Clare Heller have a hard time adapting when she suddenly became Clare Gentile? Was it hard for her to leave her family in Philadelphia and move to New York City where she had to adapt to the Italian-American way of life? I wish she were still here so I could ask her. All I can say is that your name says something about you; and my new name was saying something very different than my old one did.
What I did not anticipate was the reaction of other people to my last name. It’s very revealing when I introduce myself as Jaime Mchunu. First of all, people immediately know that my husband is black. This is not something I would ever hide, but basically when I introduce myself I am saying “My name is Jaime and my husband is black.” This opens up the opportunity for people to ask all sorts of questions into my personal life: “Did he pay lobola (aka traditional bride price) for you?” “Do you know how to make samp and beans (a traditional Zulu meal)?” “Is your family okay with you being married to a black man?!” No, receptionist at the post office, he did not pay lobola, I do not know how to make samp and beans (although I do like to eat it) and my family is absolutely okay with the color of my husband’s skin.
Often, my last name helps me out. If I want to break the ice or to be memorable, I can just throw in my last name and it works like a charm. For example, if I want to set up a meeting with someone in the government (which I have to do often for work) all I have to do is introduce myself as Jaime Mchunu, and I’m golden. Zulu people usually love that I am married to a Zulu man. It means that I am non- racist; I’m open-minded and I understand their culture. Langa and I are the face of the new South Africa. People usually like seeing us walking hand in hand, and they like us even more when they find out we’re married. We’re a bit famous in our neighbourhood because there aren’t a whole lot of mixed race couples. When people meet us or serve us at a restaurant/ grocery store/ veterinarian/ etc they remember us and I’m often thereafter referred to as Mam’Mchunu or Umama ekhaya (mother of the house).
There is also sometimes a bizarre reaction from Zulu men. I have found on a few occasions that when a Zulu man finds out that I am married to another Zulu man, he sees this as an opportunity to hit on me. I guess in his head he’s thinking “cool she’s open to dating a black man” but he ignores the fact that I’m married, and not interested in taking a mister (or whatever the male equivalent of a mistress is).
Often when people look at my credit card or passport and see my name they look up at my face in shock, then back at the card, then back to my face. Then they say “You’re a Mchunu?!” Usually it’s a kind-spirited question coming from genuine interest and/or confusion. To which I usually respond, “it’s my married name” or “my husband is Zulu.” Should I have to explain myself every time I introduce myself? Probably not. But it’s just easier. Once the airline employee taking boarding passes at the gate chased me onto the plane yelling, “Ma’am, you gave me the wrong ticket!” It happens when you’re a white Mchunu. These questions always come from Zulu people (I’ve never had a white person ask me about my last name) and they’re usually innocent and kind-spirited questions.
And now we get to the crux of the story. Sometimes the “How are you a Mchunu?” question is not so friendly. It’s more of a “How are YOU a Mchunu?” with attitude. Sort of “Just who do you think you are?”
Last week at the supermarket I apparently got the only cashier who has never seen or met me and Langa. A Zulu woman, she looked down at my credit card and back at me and started laughing. Laughing AT me, not WITH me. And then she said “that’s not your name! You’re not a Mchunu!” She yelled something in Zulu to the woman who was bagging groceries and showed her my card and then they both started laughing and talking in Zulu. Then I reached for my card, and said “I am a Mchunu!” But she pulled the card away to look at it again and kept laughing. To which I replied “I AM a Mchunu, now give me my card!” I then took my card and left the store.
I’m not usually the type of person that speaks up about something like this. If the waitress brings me a pasta with mushrooms after I had asked for no mushrooms (I HATE mushrooms) I would rather just pick around them than ask her to take it back. I don’t like conflict and I don’t do well in confrontations. So I’ll eat around the mushrooms and move on with my life. My husband is the other type of person. He has a strong sense of justice, and when he feels that he or someone he cares about has been treated unjustly, he will speak up and he will do it loudly.
So when I told Langa about this incident, he immediately demanded that we go back to the grocery store. He asked to speak to the manager and we told the story. I was TERRIFIED they would make me speak directly to the cashier who had made me feel so.... unwelcome? discriminated against? I’m not sure, but I didn’t want to see her again. The manager was amazing. She said “Well this is absolutely unacceptable! In this day and age in South Africa, we do not have room for people like this who would tease someone like this. Trust me, this will be taken care of.”
I suspect the cashier no longer has a job now. I don’t feel great about that. But I also didn’t feel great about the way she treated me. I guess it was up to the manager how to deal with a customer complaint. Maybe she just gave the cashier a strong talking to.
Basically all I’m trying to say is that in the last year and a half I have learned that there is a whole lot that people interpret and judge based on my name. Usually the response is positive, but sometimes it’s pretty rude or intrusive. I’m interested to see how this phenomenon will translate when we move to the US, where people will not know that Mchunu is a Zulu name, but they will know that it is a foreign name. I often wonder if our children will be treated differently and how they’ll react. Will they take the “pick around the mushrooms” approach like their mother, and later write a thoughtful, reflective blog post about an injustice they’ve experience? Or will they stand up for themselves in the grocery store like their father? No matter how they react, I hope that they are proud of their name and the heritage that they come from; I hope they’re proud to be a result of the “new South Africa” and a product of a love that is color blind. Only time will tell.
