Carmen Tafolla: Hello. My name is Carmen Tafolla. I was always getting my name mispronounced in school, even though most of the kids had Spanish names and most of the teachers spoke Spanish. All the way through school I was called Tafolla and Tafolla and Tapioli and Tafella and all kinds of strange things. When I got to college, one teacher would go down the list every day, Sandra Smith, George Taft, Carmen Tafollo, is that how you pronounce your name? And every day I would say no ma'am, it's pronounced Tafolla.

One day she caught me out in the hallway and she said now, how do you pronounce your name? Tafolla, I said. The LL in Spanish is pronounced like a Y. And she said oh, like in tortilla and mantilla and I said yes. And I went to class the next day so excited, ready to hear my name pronounced correctly. And she went down her list and she said Sandra Smith, George Taft, Carmen Tortilla. But at least she was getting it a little closer to the way it was supposed to be pronounced.

And that's why today I always try my best to pronounce other people's names the way they want them pronounced.