Overview
The criticism against him was almost exclusively coming from fellow Brown men and women — a type of snobby “Brownsplaining” that they would normally cringe at if it came from a non-South Asian.
By now, some of you might have seen a man-on-the-street interview that started going viral on social media at the end of last year. In the video clip, an Indian American man with an American accent, named Santosh, introduces himself as SAN-TAWSH instead of SUN-THOSH, the more common South Asian pronunciation.
Soon after, scores of South Asians across the world went wild on social media, jumping on the moment and criticizing Santosh’s Americanized pronunciation as inauthentic.
The response videos ranged from light-hearted pokes to straight-up mean takes, implicitly attacking and publicly shaming Santosh’s presumably Indian American dual identity and American accent.
Here’s the blunt truth no one was saying out loud or admitting to themselves: Just like everybody breathes, everyone — often subconsciously — code switches.
And after interviewing dozens of first- and second-generation South Asian Americans for RWB’s ongoing Brown Names project over the last few years, my conclusion:
Stop judging. A person owns their own name — and its pronunciation.
My perspective comes from speaking with South Asian Americans across generations, geographies, and family backgrounds in conversations that often have emphasized how names are so personal. It’s up to an individual how they want to identify and say their name. Not some Names Authority Overlord. Not a crop of wannabe Instagram influencers. Not even someone else with the same name.
And yet, the judgment across social media and the internet remains ruthlessly brutal. (I’m not linking to any of the hundreds of reaction posts, because then I’ll be shaming the shamers and giving them free views, which seems counterproductive.)
I’ve spent the last few months of endless scrolling on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts questioning the passionate and often sarcastic responses to Santosh’s choice of name pronunciation, which emphasizes an Americanization of his name.
First off, I understand some of the reaction (minus the bullying).
As South Asian Americans, many of us have dealt with micro-aggressions or even just people who don’t want to try to say our unique names, sometimes whitewashing them. “Can I just call you Pete?” one white man said to my mom a few years ago, me standing beside baffled that he couldn’t even have chosen a basic woman’s name instead.
So why proactively change who we are?
South Asian Americans are part of the fastest-growing racial or ethnic demographic in the United States and very much a part of the fabric of this country. Our names deserve dignity.
My belief has always been: Just try to say it. I’m not going to have a cow if someone messes up. At least they tried.
I have wondered if some of the visceral annoyance at Santosh is because sometimes mispronunciations of non-English-sounding names have been politically charged.
Like when New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had to correct then-challenger Andrew Cuomo’s numerous stabs, birthing a viral meme: “The name is Mamdani. M. A. M. D. A. N. I.”
Or when former Senator David Perdue of Georgia mocked former Vice President Kamala Harris’ first name: “Kamala or Kamala or Kamala mala mala, I don’t know. Whatever.”
When Harris met Donald Trump for the first time in person in 2024, she famously made it a point to introduce herself the way she chooses to say her Sanskrit name: COMMA-LA.
So from the perspective that names give us dignity as humans, it does make sense that if folks can say elected officials like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they can probably learn to also say Zohran Mamandi or Kamala Harris or Vivek Ramaswamy or Pramila Jayapal or Raja Krishnamoorthi.
It also seems to make sense that some Americans should learn to properly say IH-RAWN, not EYE-RAN or IH-RAN, or PAW-KI-STAWN, not PACK-EH-STAN.
But all that said, here’s what annoyed me most about the responses to Santosh:
The criticism against him was almost exclusively coming from fellow Brown men and women — a type of snobby “Brownsplaining” that they would normally cringe at if it came from a non-South Asian.
We already have too much judgment in our diaspora and across society. Why add to the agony?
Claims of authenticity are often performative, in my opinion. I think there are many of us comfortable in our own skins and balance of our dual identities that we don’t need the validation from anyone who claims cultural superiority.
Unless you’re from Edison, Fremont, or Plano, where half your classmates were desi, let’s be real: Many of us had that pause as a new teacher called out classroom attendance.
Many of us are already well aware that over time, we might subtly adopt habits of code switching from subconscious or from utter tiredness of correcting each and every person. Do I really need to lecture every person who says my dog’s very Indian name as LA-DOOOO, when I say it as LUHD-OO?
Additionally, if I suddenly want to go by “Vig” or “Viggly Wiggly” or “V8-engine,” that’s my prerogative — just as it was to be “Vig-nish” through most of childhood and more traditionally “Vig-naysh” over the last decade or so.
I suspect many of Santosh’s critics are the same tedious Brown people who judge others for liking naan pizza (reader, I do) or claim someone is not Brown enough if they can’t recite lines from “DDLJ” by heart (reader, I cannot). And they criticize aunties for being judgy?
Growing up with a blend of two cultures is both beautiful and challenging. What are we doing, publicly shaming our peers?
Whether Santosh goes by SAN-TAWSH or SUN-THOSH is his choice — and not one to mock.
This article was first published in redwhiteand brown.
