Alison Faye ­­(insert last name). I hear this about a million times a day, whether the voice calls out a casual greeting, barks a command, or desperately tries to regain my wandering attention. Why? Because that is my name. However, that is not my real name because I was given a different name in Mandarin (Chinese) months before I flew to the United States from my birthplace in Taipei, Taiwan.

Although it rolls off of the tongue easily, my true name is immediately identified as foreign, different. Tseng Yu Nung. This name is the only thing that I have inherited from my real parents aside from my characteristically small feet and lack of height. The sounds of these three syllables trigger respect for my heritage, which I know so little about. It is a lonesome cry, abandoned, like moaning wind, dying down in the distance, pleading not to be forgotten. My name has not been erased from my memory, but inadvertently hidden from how a spectator may view my daily life. However, even though few knew it existed, I have always carried my name proudly.

Strange how something so small has the power to inspire people to rise up in order to face challenges and pursue their dreams. My name is like a well that I am able to draw my courage and strength from because the water runs through the grounds where I was born, the same place where my ancestors have tread before me. It offers me comfort when doubt overwhelms me, and it donates energy when the will to persevere has been lost. When the feeling of defeat fills the air, my name will not surrender because some things are never forgotten. Nothing can change how one will remember someone else, and my name refuses to be associated with giving up.

Tseng Yu Nung may sound like a strange made up word of hocus pocus to most people, but for me it symbolizes the drive and ambition that my life is centered around.