lin

Whoa, Clanceyboy, mi hermano!

I thought I was the only one suffereing from this problem. In my case it really pisses me off because I'm having work passed on but being told that it would sell if I had a hispanic surname. (And that "border writers" have to be Mexican, not gringos who live on both sides of the border)

I've been through some amazing crap from pen names, mostly used to beat a blacklist (yes, of MOI, go figure). I have won a suit seeking to prevent paying me when my cover got cracked (don't let ANYBODY know if you are going the undercover route, conscience is not an exact science)

But to get back to you, there is this interpretation under US law, anyway. If you want to say you are Heywood Jablomie, no problem. If you have an agreement and the publisher reneges because you aren't really Heywood, they will almost certainly have to pay up.

BUT, if you publish under a name indicating a different race, nationality, or sex and that would be significant in the reception of your writing (by which, obviously, I mean you are writing about the Tibetan Amerian experience under a fake Tibetan name or about the horrors of pregnancy under a fake female name) then you are probably perpetrating a fraud.

I think that's fair. In your case, where your name is legal, I think it would be a speedbump to the decision, but they'd probably go along the lines that you are fraudulently pretending experience and changed your name to aid in commission of the fraud. Or some such.
I remember Shania Twain taking heat for describing herself as having Native American parents, but it turned out she was adopted and not actually blood kin of the foster parents who raised her and she thought of as her own.
A PR problem. Now if she'd applied for tribal benefits?

So I'd say you have a couple of options. Publish under your given name and tough it out. Publish under your legal asian name with author blurb, "Won Hung Lo is the legal name used by author Clancy Boy in his adopted country" Third would be go with the asian name, keep the whole thing quiet. If you have to do signings, hire a dashing asian actor. This whole thing could blow up on you at any time. Which might increase your sales. Or wipe you out.

Bitch, huh?

lin

The hilarious thing is: if somebody HAS a hispanic name they can be an expert on border realities and hispanicness even if they have never been out of Chicago and no Spanish has been spoken in their family for two generations and they're from Puerto Rico or Spain in the first place.

I tried to sell a book length collection of a series of articles I wrote about the border for a California publication to the same publishing house that another writer sold a collection of his border series in the same publication.
I was turned down as being a non-hispanic. The other writer has a hispanic name, but lives in Colorado and only briefly visited the area I live in to do missionary work, then wrote up a wide-eyed account of squalor, heartcockle-warming liberal lipstick and yuppie noir. He interveiwed the people using a translator.

lin

Thanks Mike, that's really touching. Unfortunately I've become totally evil now and friends are not really neccesary any more. I have my own thread, I don't need you little people now.

ClancyBoy

That's just it though. I do have experience. I know more about asia than some 3rd generation Chinese American does, because I studied. America is so racist though it assumes that such information is handed down through either blood or semen and can't be gotten any other way. (See also "it's a black thing.")

I don't want to use a non-white sounding name to help me perpetuate fraud, I want to do it so my race is not an issue. All I want to do is write stories about the people who I live and work with every day without some Liberal douche accusing me of being racist for portraying asian characters who have flaws.

I could say I'm married to a Chinese person, speak Chinese at home, etc. etc., but who would read that? Even if they did, who would believe it? It's easier and simpler if people aren't distracted by the fact that I was born in the US.

Oh you poor Americans and your "laws." Good luck winning a fraud case against the mighty People's Republic.

Is there any reason I couldn't write and publish from where I am? Is there any reason for me to set foot in the US ever? 'Cause if I don't have to, I might be able to sidestep the whole thing.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

HarryG

Imagine arriving at an American airport to promote your latest novel written under a pen name, and trying to explain that to those highly educated immigration officials. I can almost hear the handcuffs being snapped on. And if you had been daft or brave enough to use an Arabic-sounding pen name, you might well find yourself on a flight to Cuba, but one way or another you would learn all about rendition.

ClancyBoy

That's just flat-out wrong. You should adopt a Spanish pen-name. The whole reason for doing pen names initially was to overcome that kind of social bullshit.

If everyone writing about the border was named Hernandez, the only thing publishers could judge is the merit of the writing.

Which, if I recall, is what Dr. King wanted.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

ClancyBoy

So you're saying the US is retarded and I should avoid it? I'm way ahead of you.

If I ever got published and the publisher wanted to do a book tour, let them run some current through the corpse of Brandon Lee.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

Mike C

Your passport will still be in your real name, Harry. You can still travel under your real name, even if you write under a pseudonym. Likewise actors with stage names. I don't think Maurice Micklewhite has ever had a problem with immigration.

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HarryG

Michael Caine had the good sense to come home after he made his money in California, and he might just have a problem nowadays, mind you, his real name wouldn´t ring any alarm bells, would it?

HarryG

Sorry, I need to come back on this one. If the author appeared at an American airport, travelling under his real name, and Homeland Security found a book in his luggage under a different name but bearing his photograph, they would be doing somersaults.

His feet wouldn´t touch, the best he could hope for would be a swift return to the UK, like Ian McEwan, and he was banged up for 24 hours.

Baron

This debate is becoming fatuous. There are so many artists who travel backwards and forwards with no problem. Paul David Hewson (Bono) Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) and Harry Webb (Cliff Richard) are obvious names who are frequently entering the States with no problem relating to their stage names. The list is endless and immigrations and customs officials are really not that thick.

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wmd

And only people from South Jersey realize that it is two different states.

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Mike C

Indeed.

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lin

Substitute "Mexican" for "asian" and we are on exactly the same page. It's a bitch.


I like the way you think, but that wouldn't help. Your publishers, the critical establishment, and the readers would be here.

Here's something I came up with, but haven't done on a big scale. Book is by Clancy Roundeye AND Yo Ma Ma or whoever. Come up with a photo and bio of your "collaborator" and in a pinch you can say they can't enter us or can't afford to, or whatever.

That's what I was doing here, but haven't landed a deal. It's backburnered at present. This was the published stuff I couldn't get the book publisher to look at because of Writing While Gringo. I wish I'd done it this way the first time.

IMAGINARY LINES: Stories of Borders

PS, Don't tell anybody.

Good luck

By the way, a guy named Alan Riding wrote an incredible book called "Distant Neighbors" simultaneously published in Mexico as "Vecinos Distantes". It is a warts and all portrait of Mexico and Mexicans to say the least. The funny thing is, I have had many Mexicans who've read it say, "I never thought of that before, but he's right."

ClancyBoy

Haha, did you name your collaborator after the beer sitting on your writing desk?

White beard, lives in or near Mexico, laces writing with italicized Spanish words... Lin, the only way you could be more like Hemingway is if you already drank yourself to death.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.