February is Black History Month, so I’d like to write about the woman I was named for.
But first, I should tell the story of my name.
My mother originally wanted to name me Helena, after her publisher who had recently died. Helena but pronounced HeLAYna, the European way. When she began to refer to me before I was born, she shortened the name to Lena. But again, pronounced LAYna. My mother is first generation American (her parents escaped Nazi Germany during World War 2), and she says lots of words (like rather) with a European accent (a trait she unfortunately passed on to me). But my father, a Massachusetts man born to American parents, would have none of this European business. “This is America,” he said. “No one will pronounce her name like that. We should name her Lena, after Lena Horne.” He pronounced my name Lena like Leena. And so I became: a girl named Lena with one spelling and two pronunciations, caught between the two worlds my parents inhabited before they met. As a musician’s kid, I grew up playing Beethoven, begging to learn Scott Joplin, and loving both equally.
Now, a quick note: I am white, and Lena Horne, the woman I was named after, was black, Native American, and European American. Does this make my parents weird? I never thought so; it is just my name. My dad was a jazz musician. I grew up listening to Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and, of course, Lena Horne. He gave me a Nat King Cole box set when my little brother told him jazz was boring (my little brother is named Miles after Miles Davis), and he made us both listen to jazz as we fell asleep every night. We needed to listen to jazz in the same way carpenters’ kids learn to build things and farmers’ kids help out the family farm.
Growing up named after a jazz legend has shaped me. Lena Horne was brave, gorgeous, outspoken, and extremely talented. If you haven’t already heard her music, you should look her up. She had a beautiful voice and showed the glamour and poise of the mid-1900s. She was also an active member of the Civil Rights Movement. She performed in Café Society in Greenwich Village (one of the first integrated venues where Billie Holiday first sang “Strange Fruit”). She also refused to perform for segregated audiences. Once, when she saw black veterans forced to sit in the back of a venue, she went to the middle of the crowd and performed directly in front of them. With history behind us, it’s difficult to appreciate the bravery she showed in deciding not to perform for segregated audiences, but I like to imagine it this way: even at her most successful, Lena Horne was never a sellout. She went against offers of more money, fame, and better gigs to do what she believed was right. For an artist, this is an extremely difficult choice to make. But she had integrity.
Growing up named after a black woman has also shaped me. (I know this is a simplification, but I say this because people see Lena Horne as a black singer in the same way we see Obama as a black president.) This transcended having to explain to all my teachers how to pronounce and spell my name. I had a built-in lesson in Civil Rights history whenever I asked about my namesake, and my parents never shied away from telling me about the struggles she faced. I also learned to identify with someone whom I don’t look like (however much I still wish I looked like her to this day). Lena Horne had a fight that I admire—a fight came from a struggle I’ll never understand. “I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. Because being black made me understand,” she once said*. I was lucky, as a little girl with crazy hair and a weird nose and gappy teeth, to have a childhood idol who looked gorgeous and different. I had no idea how difficult that difference made her life; now that I’m older, I realize that I am lucky to be named after someone who owned who she was.
I learned to take comfort in Lena Horne’s songs throughout my life. Songs convey cultural history in a way the facts sometimes can’t, and I hear the sorrow African-Americans faced under Jim Crow more acutely when I hear Billie Holiday than when I read a textbook. I can also feel the joy so many people took in music and dancing during that same time when I hear Fats Waller. History is complicated and alive. And I have felt the beauty of Lena Horne’s music resonate with me, even in a different time.
I have seen it speak to my life, too. The first time I heard her cover of “Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home,” I said “HELL YEAH” out loud before I could stop myself, hitting the dashboard of my car. I was driving in the rain from Nashville, where I lived in a spare bedroom, to New York, where I lived in the first floor of my godparents’ house. I’ve belted out that song driving from air mattresses to pullout couches to dorm rooms. I sang it in my head as I pack my things into boxes for the fourth time in one summer and on the tenth hour of trips during which I carried all my possessions (yet again) in my Subaru to yet another new place. And I like it that way. Lena Horne keeps me from feeling bad for myself. She reminds me of the adventure in uncertainty. She challenges me to be myself, despite the critics. She tells me that when I don’t feel right, I can move on.
This year at Kenyon, I made a wall of photographs above my bed and desk. On one side: my friends from Nashville, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont. On the other: singers, old and new. I have Billie Holiday singing into a mic with her eyes closed, Nat King Cole half smiling, Johnny Cash holding a kitten, Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash, Lana Del Rey looking ambivalent in the best way, and Lena Horne. They all keep reminding me to keep going when I don’t feel like finishing my homework or a short story or a letter to a friend. “We didn’t stop,” they say with their penetrating historical stares, “Neither should you.” Lena Horne reminds me of whom I want to be by who she was: a beautiful woman of integrity; a classy woman, a brave woman. Someone who I will always hope to emulate.
Further reading:
*Quote comes from this article
Image Credit: Getty, Garth Vaughan, NPR