VIDEO: Comedian Rajiv Satyal Releases 'The Mispronunciation of Kamala Harris'

Is it "kuh-MAL-ah," "KAM-el-ah," "KAR-mel-uh" or something else? The answer could depend on where you live, what color you are, or, in some cases, your political leanings.

Kamala Harris is not just the first female U.S. vice president of Black and South Asian ancestry. She is also the first veep with a name that is mispronounced more than any before her, sometimes even for ridicule, by political adversaries.

Now comedian Rajiv Satyal, who is of Indian ancestry, has come out with "The Mispronunciation of Kamala Harris," a new video exploring the connection among names, inclusion, and identity.

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"I grew up in a mostly white community in the Midwest, where almost nobody could pronounce my name properly," Satyal said. "It has been a source of material for some of my standup shows, but not everybody's a comedian, and so it can affect their self-esteem. Hearing so many people mispronounce the Vice President's name got me thinking how common the problem is."

For the record, Rajiv Satyal is pronounced "rah-jeev suth-YAL," but even people in India pronounce it in different ways, not to mention those in the U.S.

"The Mispronunciation of Kamala Harris" is not exclusively about the Vice President; Satyal uses her multiracial, multiethnic identity as a jumping-off point for a discussion about names in general, as well as related issues involving race and culture. The project is more of a video essay than comedy show, but in keeping with his job as a comedian, it's appropriately heavier on humor than linguistics. Despite its hybrid documentary-talk show approach, the comedian avoids interviewing sociologists, psychologists and politicians, choosing instead to chat with two entertainers of color-actresses Richa Moorjani ("Never Have I Ever") and Candy Washington, founder of the multimedia company 1214 Media Productions.

"Who is it up to to decide how you pronounce your name?" Washington asks, in the video. "It's you; you're an adult, you're a grown person, you decide how you pronounce your name, and if someone has a problem with that, it's their problem."

"At first, I would probably get irritated if a South Asian person said my name wrong, but at the same time, you can't really blame or judge people because everyone has such a different experience," Moorjani says. "Growing up as a first- or second-generation person in this country, we have all had such unique and different ways of growing up and how we learned about our identities and accepted or embraced or rejected parts of our South Asian identities... Everyone has had such a different way of growing up here, and because of that, people say their own names and other South Asian names the only way they know how."

In his video, Satyal points out that Kamala Harris' preferred way of pronouncing her own name ("COMMA-lah") is not necessarily how it would be pronounced in India. Candy Washington is okay with that, as she tells Satyal in "The Mispronunciation of Kamala Harris."

"As an African American woman, we already have so much going against us, whether your name is too 'ghetto' or too 'black,'" she says. "You are automatically seen as being ignorant or not as smart if your name isn't assimilated to a Western name... Kamala pronouncing her name any way she wants to is a statement of 'This is who I am; take it or leave it,' and I really love that. I think that's a great example of brown and black girls, who are always told 'your lips are too big, your hair is too nappy, your name is too ghetto, your butt is too big, your clothes are too tight.' Whatever it is, we're always being told that we are too much or too black, so I think it's beautiful for someone to say this is who I am, and that is enough."

"The Mispronunciation of Kamala Harris" is now on YouTube. Information about Rajiv Satyal is available at FunnyIndian.com.

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