Tennessee Voices, Episode 331: Irma Herrera, civil rights attorney and playwright
Editor's note: This was adapted from the Jan. 18, 2023, Latino Tennessee Voices newsletter.
When I was a freshman in college, there were seven Davids who lived in my dorm. That obviously created great confusion among our classmates and so I decided to stand out by telling people to call me "David." By that, I mean the Spanish pronunciation, as in, Dah-VEED.
The name stuck with my college friends even though I was known in my family as Davidcito or the English pronunciation of David, i.e., DAY-vuhd. I believe my Cuban and Colombian relatives wanted it to hit home that I was a "gringo Latino" because I was born in the United States.
My name is easy compared to many other fellow Latinos, and as someone with the challenge and privilege of living "in the hyphen" — or the ecotone that simultaneously distinguishes and bridges Latino and Anglo culture — I tend to alternate how I say my name. But I appreciate the value of why it is important to pronounce a person's name correctly, especially after I spoke with Irma Herrera.
Irma, whose pronounces her name "EAR-ma" not "UHR-ma," was born and raised in Alice, Texas. Her Mexican American family has lived in that town for generations and she was the first among them to go to college and then to law school, moving to California to defend the civil rights of fellow Latino residents.
A few years ago, Irma, a self-described Chicana, started writing a book and it turned into a one-woman play called "Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name?" In February, she is bringing her show to Nashville and it will the first time she has performed it in the South.
We spoke via Zoom on Tuesday although we had first met in person in Nashville last September as she was seeking to learn more about the city.
"I loved Nashville," she said. "It's so vibrant and so diverse. We have these images about what the South is — and it's not there anymore."
"Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name?" will take place Feb. 10-12 at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in downtown Nashville. Find tickets here.
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About Tennessee Voices
The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.
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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network - Tennessee. He is of Colombian and Cuban descent, has studied or worked in several Spanish-speaking countries, and was the founding editor of Gaceta Tropical in Southwest Florida. He has lived in Tennessee since 2014. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at [email protected] or tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Video podcast: Irma Herrera, civil rights attorney and playwright