Colonial Bullshit...never ends

Actual letter that I sent today to the registra's office at my university:


To whom it may concern in the Registrar Office:

The purpose of this letter is to ask the proper officials to give attention to a matter that is present on the Testudo webpage (One of the Student Services Webpages of the University), in the registrar section, where I am asked to apply for graduation. The form asks me to put my name as I would like it to appear on the diploma. I found myself with a chance to finally put my whole name and surnames without any hyphen and with the proper punctuation. But when I tried that, the system would not let me insert the proper acute accent on the second o, of one of my surnames. Although this might be dismissed as a simple matter, I find it troubling that my graduation diploma cannot reflect my proper name; a matter that certainly affects my self-esteem and makes me think of the position of minorities in this university. Many times, I have chosen to not put the accent as to avoid confusion as I have received messages where my last name is written in different iterations of the following example: David Col=%7n Cabrera. Furthermore, I find this whole matter incongruent with the more 'diverse' environment the university is trying to promote nowadays.

My request is simple, in that I wish that my diploma displays my full name as it was given to me in Spanish: David Colón Cabrera (where Colón Cabrera are my two surnames). While Americans in the US only have one last name, this is not the case in other parts of the world. As a Puerto Rican, born in a territory of the United States, and a full American citizen by birth, I wish nothing more than that my diploma reflects the birth registration laws of the territory of Puerto Rico, as with any other state. In Puerto Rico both the last names of the father and the mother are reflected in the offspring without any hyphen. In addition, I ask that the second O in Colón, has the proper acute accent. As some might know, without the accent the word has a different connotation in English than what it has in Spanish, which is why I think it important for it to reflect my birth given name. I do not wish to cause any inconvenience, as I know that many do not know or are not trained in putting diacritical marks. Here is a link from Lafayette College that provides the proper computer shortcuts for diacritical marks: http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~langlab/accents.htm.

Thank you very much for your time,

David Colón-Cabrera