Approved!

Everything went smoothly! The only glitch was that there are discrepancies in my name.

I have two names recorded on my passport - one is my legal name translated from Mandarin, and one "as known as" name which is the English name my parents gave me when I was born. I have used my aka name my entire life. When I applied for college in the States, I never even mentioned my translated legal name anywhere. Since that name also appears on my passport, I had no problem obtaining an I-20, visa, school ID, and even my social security number/card in that name. Thus my bank accounts, old driver's license, credit card, etc. are ALL in this name. My translated name only exists on my passport.

I first encountered a problem when I tried to get a new driver's license. They refused my aka name despite it being on my social security card and old driver's license AND passport. The DMV lady basically told me, "Look, if you want a driver's license, then THIS is your name." Well, fine then. It would've been really fine until she insisted that the 2nd syllable of my first name is, in her professional opinion, my middle name. I tried to explain how it's just a syllable of my first name and that I have no middle name. All she said is, "if you want a driver's license, then THIS is your name." I asked to talk to a supervisor but she said that the supervisor is on break and he's going to say the same thing anyways. Besides, "here in America, this is how we write names."

I was pretty upset by that point but decided that it's probably not worth making a scene about. I gave up, took my new driver's license that bears a name that's not ANYWHERE in any other records and left. I just needed to be able to drive before my old out-of-state one expires. For fear of getting stop by the cop and carrying a wallet full of credit card/debit card/atm card with my aka name on and a driver's license of another name, I photocopied my passport info page and stuck it in my wallet. Just in case.

Anyways, I'm totally sidetracked. That DMV lady is why I have a weird name in the database. Our immigration officer was very understanding, "Our database doesn't allow hyphens. They have to leave a blank." At the end of the interview, she said she'll change the names to what I submitted (my aka name plus my new last name) and send the letters through the mail.


I look forward to the day when I can walk into DMV to demand that they correct my name to what it should be.