Hilaria, Hilarious. What is the big deal. With the problems that we're facing, I yawn and react with a big--"So what."
It sounds like a bunch of big mean girls circling the wagon and taunting her because she's been exposed as a female of privilege who chose to change her name to better reflect who she believes she really is.
And isn't that the American way--the Lipshytes who became Liptons. The Lewandanskis who became Lees.
Remember when Hilary Clinton became Hilary Rodham Clinton? She took a fair amount of female shaming over that.
What if Hilaria kept Hilary and married Alex Rodriguez--she'd be Hilary Rodriguez and everyone would assume she was Latina. There are any number of Mary's who married into another ethnicity and everyone assumed they were that ethnicity. In America, a woman changes her name and becomes her husband's identity. A woman learns to cook her husband's favorite dishes, after all, whether or not they reflect her heritage.
And then there are all the names that could be any ethnicity--Lee can be Jewish, Protestant, Buddhist.
During history, when last names were established, most men just took the name of their trade as the family name--hence--Goldsmiths who never saw gold.
In Hungary, after the establishment of the Law of Reception, Jews Maygarized their names (both first and last) Sandor Frankel became Sandor Ferenczi. Many Hungarians went one step further and married their children into noble Hungarian families and dropped the Jewish identity.
During the 19th century, middle class Jews routinely baptized their sons so that they could have business careers later. In Biblical times, Jewish men reversed their circumcisions to be more Hellenized.
Jews have a long history of having both an inside and an outside name. Sigmund Freud is Solomon. Sharon Kahn is Sasha. Senile Sylvia is Symma Chayah. Sylvia's mother was born in Poland as Gittel Haimowitz. At some point, in order to support her widowed mother, she became Gladys Hayman and hid her Jewish roots to work as a telephone operator for the notoriously anti-semitic Bell Telephone Company. And what's wrong with that? She wouldn't have been the first Jew to fool the anti-semites. What about Ron Stallworth, who faked being white to spy on the KKK? And Sammy Davis Jr, who converted to Judaism--he claimed to be "Black, Puerto-Rican, and Jewish." And Geraldo Rivera (real name--Jerry Rivers--Jewish and Puerto Rican, who notoriously said, "The Jews don't need me).
And what of Ivanka Trump who converted to Judaism. Karli Kloss too. Although by Jewish law we embrace the convert fully--still--I do not believe Ivanka has the neshama. But then again, neither does Wormtongue Kushner, her husband.
Immigrants come here and shed their names faster than their accents. Many don't want to be what they were, and the establishment of a new name has all sorts of seductions.
And of course, what of Jay Gatsby, that fictional parvenu?
Hilaria may be a preposterous nincompoop. But she'd be just as preposterous if she were still Hillary.