Despite living in New York City all my life, racism is explicitly prevalent even in the most liberal of cities, and, at times, I still feel like an Other. While I always expected I would end up marrying a Taiwanese-American person like myself, I somehow fell in love with a man who happens to be white. I never thought I'd end up dating white guys, nor did I think I'd marry one.

My husband's last name is German, and is mildly rare. My ex-surname is not as common as other Taiwanese last names. In fact, I would gather there are fewer than ten of us total living in the United States. Like my husband's name, we are few and far between. As unique as I thought my name was, I felt bittersweet about it.

My parents divorced when I was still in the womb, but for reasons unbeknownst to me, my mother gave me my father's name on my birth certificate. I questioned her decision for years, and still don't know why she didn't want me to have her family name. During my childhood, I felt like this moniker was my self-identification tag - how people would only see me as. It was a label for an outsider (a.k.a. an Other that would never be white).

Weeks before my wedding, I toyed with the idea of changing my name. I could have a fresh start in life - new name, new license, new everything. Maybe I can finally have my mother's family name too, one I coveted since I was young. But then the feminist part of me strongly opposed taking my husband's name. How can I completely eradicate my single life and the accomplishments I achieved under my maiden name? What kind of feminist am I?

For those who have yet to legally change their name, be it from marriage or out of whim, you will find how laborious this procedure is - emotionally and time-wise (it took almost three months for me to legally change my name).

When I got married, I cast aside my last name completely. There was no hyphen or anything that linked back to my life pre-marriage; I was a completely new person. It's not that I hated having a Taiwanese mark - it was more of not wanting to have any association with my absentee father.

I love being a "Mrs.", and I enjoy practicing my new signature. And this name feels right when it comes out of my hand. My previous name never conjured in me so many positive emotions.

I love being a "Mrs.", and I enjoy practicing my new signature. And this name feels right when it comes out of my hand. My previous name never conjured in me so many positive emotions. I always felt ashamed of my last name, humiliated to be the daughter of a man who could have a string of sordid affairs when his wife, whom he had been married to for almost eight years, was pregnant with his first child. It was so liberating for me when I chose to legally change my name.

I am grateful to be living in a country that is slowly becoming more progressive. For marginalized peoples, it is almost a miracle that society is slowly waking up to the injustices of the world. As a POC writer, when I decide to focus on race and being female, I wonder whether it would be easier if I still had my old surname, just so I can be taken more seriously. If people didn't know I am fully Taiwanese, would they even want to listen to me? Is my voice even relevant?

Maybe the only one who really cares about this is me; those who have yet to meet me would never think I'm Asian with my new last name. Just because I changed my name doesn't make me any less proud to call myself an immigrant's daughter, nor does it lessen the fact that I am proud to be Asian-American. I don't consider myself as one who comes from a broken family, and changing my last name has not made me any less a feminist, it's only helped me make peace with my past. I encourage everyone to do what feels right for them, not what they feel should be expected of them.