Maybe it’s his name that’s the problem? Jay-Hong becomes Jay. My father, Hyun-Duk, becomes Harry. It is 1999 and Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are at the height of their fame. My mother, Soon-Yool, becomes Sally.

The boy I tutor changes his name every week. When I first met him, he was Joe. He went to class and realized every other white boy was named Joe — so he becomes Michael. The three- hour Michael Jackson documentary is released and he becomes Adam. I tell him his Korean name, Jun-Hyuk, is nice. He laughs.

“Do you have a Korean name?” he asks me. I tell him that my parents had named me Jin-A, or Gina. “See? Korean but still easy for white people to pronounce.” He smiles. “How could you possibly understand?”

My grandparents buy a struggling candy store called Kandy Korner. My grandfather sorts gumdrops and sherbets and now knows the difference between “rocky road” and “peppermint crunch.” At night, they attend language school. The teachers are kind, but when they walk home they hear people yell “Ching-Chong!” and “Gook!” They understand what that means now.

My grandparents set up a family, and now their grandchildren have acceptable names and can speak enough English to prove their worth in a job interview. We understand attempts at humor. We understand offense. We have studied the language. We want you to do the same.

Change the idea that global migration is thievery, a pastime, a decision made on a whim. Change the idea that it is anything but an attempt at renewal. It is the ridiculousness of a new language. It is Jun-Hyuk changing his name. It is my grandparents, waving at anger. It is my ability to think in a future tense — rather than one of present survival.

Now on to stories from the week.