An Excerpt from What Your Comfort Costs Us

Women of color disproportionately bear the burden of emotional labor in the workplace, simultaneously balancing efforts to make their workplaces more welcoming and inclusive while facing microaggressions and systemic barriers that hinder their professional success.

Public health expert M. Gabriela Alcalde combines her firsthand experiences in the predominantly white worlds of nonprofit and philanthropy with research and insights from fellow women of color in her new book, What Your Comfort Costs Us. She illuminates oppressive workplace patterns and ways they can be meaningfully addressed and transformed.

In the following excerpt, Alcalde emphasizes the harm caused by mispronouncing or outright rejecting someone's name and how recognizing an individual's full identity can lead to meaningful improvements in the workplace.

◊◊◊◊◊

Say My Name

Being denied your name is a particularly demoralizing microaggression. Navigating situations where you are denied your name takes a lot of emotional labor; over a lifetime, this extra work adds up. This denial comes in many forms, from mispronouncing and anglicizing names, to flat-out having white people say they won’t say your name and giving you a name of their choosing, to being addressed with more informality than others in your position.

Danielle, a Black nonprofit leader, talked about the frustration of being in public events where white men were called by an honorific while she was referred to by her first name, although they had the same title. Given that women of color in leadership are disproportionately educated, several women talked about not being referred to as “Dr.” while white and male peers were. Danielle shared an experience where she noticed a very real shift in how white people treated her when she introduced herself with “Dr.” in front of her name: “I had Doctor in front of my name, and these older white people shifted their behavior toward me . . . just before, the same people had been very rough with me . . . it changed how they talked to me . . . it was a shift in the atmosphere . . . it was very noticeable and part of noticing it is also being like, how do I feel about this?”

For immigrant women and women of color with names that are not familiar to or comfortable for white people, this quote from Lucia, a Latine educational leader, is illustrative: “Not taking the time for something as simple as how to say your name, because they see it as so outside of their frame of reference that they don’t think they need to even try to do that in a way that they would with anyone else to show respect and to show recognition. So having someone in a higher rank position tell me that my name is not easy enough to pronounce, so they just won’t say it, and not understand that’s both offensive and out of line, shows just how much some identities are not accepted. Not even recognized as being able to take up space in certain areas of leadership.”

Our names reflect our stories and histories, cultures, languages, and ancestors and are an essential way we manifest our identities. Many women I interviewed shared stories of their names being changed, ignored, or ridiculed, particularly by board members and others in positions of power. Veronica’s story is representative of situations that many women shared with me: “All of a sudden, the chair of the board of trustees and the most powerful person in the room came up to us and started small talk. She said something to the person next to me, then turned to me and said, ‘Oh, I’m going to introduce you before you give your remarks. So how do you say your name?’

“I said my last name, and she looked at me and turned, laughing, to the white woman next to me and said, ‘Why can’t you have a name like her (pointing to the white woman)? That’s an easy one.’ I was horrified, and I had a young intern beside me, whose name is also ‘foreign-sounding,’ and she looked horrified. At that moment, I knew that because of this person’s power, I couldn’t really react, but I had to do something while knowing that because of her power, this could realistically affect my job and my family if I lost my job.”

Everyone who mentioned an incident with their name being mispronounced, avoided, or changed said the same thing: I understand that not everyone can accurately pronounce my name; I don’t expect everyone to be able to say it well on the first try or maybe even ever. All I am asking is that if someone doesn’t know how to pronounce my name, they should ask me and try. That’s it. It’s a small effort with deep significance. Next time you encounter someone whose name you don’t know how to pronounce, ask them how to say their name, then try to say it, and then try again.

From What Your Comfort Costs Us by M. Gabriela Alcalde, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2025 by M. Gabriela Alcalde. Reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books.