PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania state Sen. Art Haywood wants the commonwealth to get the names right.
He introduced legislation on Thursday that would provide Pennsylvania agencies with the ability to use accent marks on names on all commonwealth-issued documents, like driver’s licenses, by July 1, 2024.
Diacritical marks appear above or below a letter, or in some other position, in a word or a name. In Spanish or other Latin-derived languages, it changes the pronunciation and spelling.
“I’m not sure how I’d feel if every time I looked down at my driver’s license, the correct name was not on it,” said Haywood.
He said these citizens have waited long enough, and it’s a matter of applying new software, not recreating the wheel.
“There’s nothing revolutionary or radical. It’s just to get the names right,” he reiterated.
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Rev. Luis Cortés, president and CEO of the nonprofit Esperanza, said it’s about respectfully getting it right.
“In essence, what’s happening is that people are being renamed when we can’t give them their name,” he said. “Thousands of Pennsylvanians are being put in an uncomfortable situation as their IDs might not match their birth certificates.”
Haywood and Cortés want the legislation to be effective even sooner than July 2024: “They’ve waited all their lives just to have the appropriate accent and appropriate names on official documents,” said Haywood.
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