Dear

The Spectator

Editorial Board,

On Feb. 9, all graduating seniors received an email where we were asked to put the phonetic pronunciation of names for our diplomas. As someone with a Spanish name, Karina started asking around on what we were supposed to do. Most of the replies were of other seniors nervously laughing it off or telling her “to do what you think is best.” The end result was to submit the form with “[Spanish Pronunciation]” in front of the phonetic pronunciation. However, we couldn’t let it go and started discussing how to bring attention to this issue.

On Feb. 26, Anyi emailed Events & Scheduling about the possibility of having faculty members from different language departments read the names at Commencement to ensure names would be pronounced accurately. By this point, we had already spoken to a professor from the Hispanic Studies department to see if this was of interest, and they affirmed they would be willing to help out in pronouncing the names in Spanish.

The response we received from the school on March 1 was “I’m not sure if what you’re suggesting is possible given the speed at which students need to cross the stage (I’m not sure we can switch name readers that quickly), but I will share your idea with the planning committee to discuss.” After this response, we did not hear anything back. This response was insufficient and disappointing, so we decided to gain support on our own accord.

On March 5, we created a Google Form to see how many students, from all class years, were interested in having names pronounced in their native languages. The next day, we spread the word on our Instagram accounts to reach more students. Currently, 222 students have filled out the form, indicating that many believe that mispronouncing student names denies us of our dignity and the ability to celebrate an important moment we worked so hard for.

On a more logistical side, we also created a form for the faculty in order to gain insight into how many languages are spoken amongst staff. As of now, we have received 16 responses and 15 different languages. Likewise, we have reached out to the Audiovisual Services Team (who works for Commencement), and they have both offered support and technical advice. The point is, logistically, Hamilton College has the resources to make it possible.

Finally, on March 10 — right before Spring Break — we created and shared an infographic with Events & Scheduling of the data we collected from the Google Forms. On March 24, we received a meeting request for this upcoming week with Events & Scheduling. This is a step in the right direction, and we are hopeful that their decision to speak to us values students’ voices and considers the labor that we, as two first-generation students of color, had to put into having something as basic as our names pronounced correctly at our own graduation ceremony.

Anyi Rescalvo ’22 & Karina Becerra ’22