What’s In a Name?

December 22, 2020, is a rebirth of sorts for my family. After going back and forth for years, today I officially changed my family name from Hart to Gómez. I can remember debating if I should change my name since I was around 11. Now, as a 36-year-old man, I’ve taken the dive. There’s a lot I wrestled with personally in making this decision, and I assume there are a number of folks also wondering why I have changed my name at this point in my life. Here are 3 reasons explaining my name change decision. 

My Story

My parents divorced when I was two. As a result, I spent the early part of my life being raised by a single Mexican-American mom and older brother. When I was nine my dad told me he was getting remarried. Along with his engagement news, he added that I had the choice to get on board with his decision and be happy for him or get on with my own life. As crazy as it sounds, even now, at nine my relationship with my dad became permanently severed. At 10 or 11 I asked my mom about changing my name to her maiden name Bernal. Because I was so young there were multiple legal hoops and expenses that prevented us from making the jump to change my name. 

The year 2000 was the worst year of my childhood. In May of that year, my older brother George died of drug and alcohol abuse. In June my favorite uncle, Jerry died of an overdose, and in October my mom remarried. To this day I still haven’t fully recovered from the emotional and psychological trauma of that period in my life. 

The man my mom married is Ruben Gómez. Ruben’s always been a good guy but the season he came into my life couldn’t have been worse. I was in so much pain and confusion about everything in my life tail spinning, that at my mom’s wedding my padrino got me piss drunk so I could “relax.” That night my friends and I destroyed our hotel room. I was 15. The demeanor I had toward Ruben in those early years was “you stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.” Anytime I perceived a line was crossed I blew up emotionally and at times physically. Until I went to the Navy that was the nature of our relationship. 

Throughout my teen years, my father and I became more and more estranged. Every few years we tried to make a run at having a relationship but it always fell apart within a few months. There was always a stigma I felt being raised in a majority Mexican-American community as one of the few people with a white name. What made matters worse was the internal burden I felt in bearing the name of a man I hardly knew. 

When I turned 18 I thought about changing my name again because there were far fewer legal hoops to jump through, but I didn’t know what to change to. Then I joined the Navy and figured a name change would only complicate my enlistment. So I let the thought of changing my name go, for a while…

In 2006 I married Angela and now with a new wife, I figured I was locked into my Hart name. If I changed my name it would impact more than just me. Then in 2010, we started having kids and by 2016 we had our fourth child. Now, as a family of six, I decided I would “redeem” the Hart name. You see, my dad and I are estranged, his dad was not in his life, and I don’t even know any of my Hart family history beyond my grandfather. 

However, as my kids have been getting older they’ve started asking more questions about our family history, where we come from, and what our culture is. What they know is we are Mexican-American, but there’s always the follow-up question, “then why is our last name Hart?”

The irony is, they know their grandpa’s Ruben and Guadalupe who love them, spend time with them, and have been active in their lives. They have their grandma’s Betty and Helen, their tía Yaya, and tíos Anthony, Mark, Jr, Anthony, and George. Minus my father they have a rich family history, they know they are little Texicans and come from a vibrant Mexican-American culture. They only know of the existence of their grandpa Mark (my estranged father). They don’t remember what he looks like, they’ve never spent time with him, and they know nothing about the people or culture he comes from.

 My first reason for changing my name is to fully recognize my Mexican-American culture and the people that have always been mi familia. 

God’s Story

This season has personally been a refining and pruning season for me as a Christian. Many of the tribes, beliefs, and candidly the arrogance within evangelicalism that I’ve associated myself with I’ve been repenting of. At the heart of this season has been a desire to get back to focusing my relationship with Jesus, on Jesus. For years I fought for things like reformed theology, certain expressions of church, advocating for specific church planting networks, and trying to fit the mold of what the wider evangelical sub-culture valued. 

Looking back I see in the struggle to fit in and be accepted in predominately affluent-white Christian spaces I lost sight of my first love and identity in how Christ made me. My first love is Christ, not a denomination or evangelical brand, and my identity as a Mexican-American kid from inner-city San Antonio that Jesus shed his blood to save, whiteness and affluence aren’t pre-requisites to leading in God’s church.

My story and culture isn’t a hindrance in God’s kingdom but a benefit that validates the reality of God’s people being made of every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Something I’ve been meditating on lately is how Jesus didn’t simply come to earth to identify with mankind, he became one of mankind. Specifically, he became a Jewish Carpenter from Galilee. As a first-century Jew, Jesus would have been seen as one of the marginalized in Roman society. The military and economic affluent belonged to Rome, the intellectuals were Greek, and the religiously pious were primarily Jerusalem Jews who possessed the “right” theological training. As a carpenter, Jesus most likely learned his trade from his earthly father Joseph. He worked the family business and worked among other marginalized Galilean families. As a Galilean, he was too far from Jerusalem to be an “authentic” Jew, and too Jewish to be accepted by the gentiles that lived in Nazareth. 

In short, Jesus chose to become a man that associated with the marginalized, lived among them, made their problems his problems, and dedicated his life to speaking value and dignity into their lives through his ministry and ongoing association with them. To my shame, I spent years trying to fit into spaces that implicitly taught me to deny my story and culture to be accepted. What makes it worse is it was done in the name of “God.”

I am changing my name in part as an act of repentance and as an Ebenezer because my story and Mexican-American culture makes much of Jesus. This is my culture, these are my people, their narrative is my narrative. My life’s hope is to represent Christ by raising my family in predominately black and brown communities as we seek the flourishing of our people. 

A New Legacy

Finally, I want to leave a new legacy for my children. It’s hard to redeem a name that has no context. It’s hard to change a narrative with no back story. The more I thought about this struggle the more I realized this isn’t our story. Let me explain.

When I was in boot camp my dad wrote me regularly that he would be at my graduation. Days before my graduation date I received a letter from him that he wouldn’t be coming. But my step-dad Ruben was at my graduation with my mom. He was there when I sat outside the Chicago Museum of Art scared and crying because I thought I made a mistake enlisting. 

When Ang and I got married, my dad said nothing would stop him from attending my wedding. The day before our ceremony my dad called and said he wasn’t coming. But my step-dad Ruben was there. He celebrated and supported my marriage and has been one of my family’s biggest advocates for the last 14 years. 

When we started having kids my dad said he’d move heaven and earth to be actively involved in the lives of my kids. To this day he hasn’t met my youngest son and has only seen my third child once. But grandpa Ruben has been a part of every major event in my kids’ lives. He’s played with them, vacationed with them, celebrated them, put them to bed, made memories with them, and cherished them as his own. 

The third reason for changing my name is because God in his goodness has given me a father figure that I had been too blind to see. He’s given my children a grandpa that’s been so present they can’t imagine a world without grandpa Ruben. At 36 years old I’m just realizing Ruben never had children of his own so that he could help my mom raise me. Becoming a Gómez embraces a new legacy of love, familia, and commitment that Ruben has modeled to me.