Name change after getting married

[ScottThuy 140]

Keeping her family name is the traditional way. Apparently so is keeping all manner of junk. Linh has discovered the "second hand" stores and has been preparing for some apocalypse to befall us. I thought I was the only one dealing with mild hoarding. Thanx folks.

I have to say that I hate dollar tree now... that store is like crack to Thuy... and when a sign says 50% off it must be a deal right? cant pass that up.... How many plastic bowls can one family need?

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I've had this discussion with Phuong already. It's not just Vietnamese women. It's ALL women. Men and women just think differently when it comes to spending money.

Look, honey. I saved $50 on this! It's usually $100!

No, honey. You spent $50 on a piece of junk we don't need, and won't use.

Back in April (I think) I was hunting online for the same sort of "dua" that Phuong had in Vietnam. Stainless steel with little rings around the business end. Phuong and her kids were really jazzed when we saw the same ones in a Korean tofu restaurant near where we live. I finally found a place that sold them online. Made in Japan instead of China, which I figured would earn me some major brownie points. While I was shopping, I saw a "rice washing bowl" for sale on the same site. Really cool design - little bumps on the bottom for rubbing the rice grains, and a molded spout with thin slots cut into it so you could easily drain the water without dumping out the washed rice. After watching them wash rice in a pot every day, I thought this would be a big hit.

Well, I was right - it was a hit. They store practically everything in it, but they don't use it to wash rice.

[ScottThuy 140]

We applied for Thuys SS# a month ago and went back today as the card never arrived and we wanted to change her surname on the new card.. the woman refused to change her name and only agreed to have a new card with the premarriage name on it.. I guess when that card arrives next week we will have to go back again and try to get the name changed in the system.. The woman insisted that the name must be changed by immigration before the SS system...

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

We applied for Thuys SS# a month ago and went back today as the card never arrived and we wanted to change her surname on the new card.. the woman refused to change her name and only agreed to have a new card with the premarriage name on it.. I guess when that card arrives next week we will have to go back again and try to get the name changed in the system.. The woman insisted that the name must be changed by immigration before the SS system...

I wouldn't worry about it. The people who work at the SSA are largely inept. My wife applied for a Social Security card a few weeks after arriving in the US. It was after we were married, but it didn't matter because she kept her family name. Of course, the card said "Not authorized for employment blah blah blah".

Fast forward several months - the EAD's arrived only a few days before the AOS interview. We didn't have time to get Social Security cards for the kids before the interview, so we went to the local SSA office a few days after the interview with the EAD cards. While we were at it, we asked that they change my wife's card to remove the "Not authorized for employment..." statement.

A couple of weeks later ALL of the Social Security cards arrive, and ALL of them have the "Not authorized for employment..." statement on them, including my wife's new card. Apparently, the bonehead at the SSA didn't realize that an EAD WAS authorization for employment by DHS!

We just waited until they got their green cards before bothering to go back and (finally) get cards without the "Not authorized..." statement on them.