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Names can be especially meaningful to children who struggle to enact the received wisdom of a loved oneLs essence or legacy. In August 1973, Karen Tongson was born to the Katindigs, a Filipino musical dynasty, and her mother named her after Karen Carpenter, a pop classicist whose work was part of her repertoire. In April 1969, Carpenter and her brother Richard signed with A&M Records under the family surname. At age nine, Tongson processed her namesakeLs untimely death in a travel agency waiting room as her family prepared to immigrate to Southern California, the recording industry hub that drew the Carpenters from New Haven to Downey to kickstart RichardLs music career before his kid sister and the world discovered her voice. Throughout Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Tongson uses parallelism to demonstrate the chasm inheritance opens up between identity and expectation by examining …