Acceptance of Accent Marks

Photo Attribution: 1234qwer1234qwer4, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons 

In an increasingly multicultural nation and with one struggling with recent debates regarding immigration policies, the United States falls short in one surprisingly basic area; its management of names. Despite being a country built on by immigrants, many federal and state systems refuse to recognize accent marks in official documents, such as passports, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, etc. This quiet omission and disregard to people’s names, requires a change.

This quiet disregard came to my attention when I began to write my name with an accent mark over the “ I.”I felt as if it made my name more unique and I enjoyed the extra step to write my name, because it felt as if I was following my heritage more closely. Later, I quickly realized that some online programs had an accent mark over my name and some didn’t. I checked my birth certificate and passport and realized those two didn’t include the accent mark either. In that case, I decided to ask my parents why? They told me they intended to write my name with an accent mark, but when it came to printing my name on my birth certificate, they were denied the extra print of ink. 

The root of this problem goes back to some of the earliest days of the American bureaucracy. When the first immigration and identification systems were established in the 19th and 20th centuries, record keeping was often performed by hand or on typewriters that lacked accent keys. Even clerks on the famous Ellis Island routinely would report that they removed any unfamiliar characters above arriving immigrants’s name. Over time, this practice had become a standard, even as the country grew more diverse and adapted to the technology era. That being said, despite the rapid growth of technology, the U.S. government still failed to update its database and accommodate names that millions of Americans actually bear. 

Critics often argue that updating federal databases and systems would be costly and complicated. Despite, many other nations including Canada, Mexico, and much of Europe have already successfully converted their systems to accommodate accent marks. Additionally, U.S. private companies like Google, Apple, and major airlines now support accent marks in usernames and booking systems, but the country itself refuses to. In an era where technology easily accommodates diverse alphabets and emojis, it’s indefensible that the U.S. government forms still cannot handle an é or ñ.

Ultimately, a name is not just a collection of letters placed aside each other, in reality it’s a form of identity, history, pride, and so much more. An accent mark placed above a letter can completely change the meaning of pronunciation of one’s name. Take José versus Jose, or Peña versus Pena. Again, names are deeply personal, and to finally change the governmental systems would be an act of respect to fellow Americans. The U.S. government should finally allow people to be, quite literally, who they are.