I am a native Spanish speaker and English is my second language. As you can guess, I have an accent. If you talk to me in person you would be able to understand what I am saying, but at the same time you would notice that I have a hard time pronouncing certain words. I have problems pronouncing the vowel “i” and words that have “rl” together ties my tongue into knots.
I cannot count on two hands how many times I have been teased because of my accent. Sometimes it comes from a close friend or from a stranger, who is just making an innocent joke. Even though most of the comments are “innocent” jokes, eventually they get under my skin. However, it was not until my sophomore year that I started to be self-conscious of my accent. Everything started with a communications class. My professor, who was a short, bald, Caucasian man, said that people with an accent are less likely to be hired. I honestly don't remember his exact words because this event happened two years ago, but I will never forget how they made me feel. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was the only person with an accent in that class, but my ears and head started to become warm and I could feel my cheeks turning red. I do not know if the students of my class were staring at me, but I felt that they were all thinking of me. The person who is supposed to be the most knowledgeable in the room was indirectly telling me that I had less of a chance to get a job in the United States than anybody in that class. What is that supposed to mean? That I was less capable than my peers because I could not pronounce the vowel “i”? I was only 19 at the time, so I believed what he said. As soon as I left the room, I started to think about ways I could “fix” my accent. I racked my brain endlessly thinking about how I could make my accent less prevalent, so I could sound like a native English speaker.
This was my sophomore year, today I am a senior, and until this day every time I have a job interview, the voice of this professor comes back to haunt me. Like any other senior in their last semester I have been applying for jobs like crazy, and every time I read the words “What time can we contact you for a phone interview?” I begin to second guess myself.
Now that I look back, it saddens me that the thought ever crossed my mind. I wanted to erase my accent (if that is even possible) I didn't realize that in a way I wanted to erase who I was and where I come from. I began analyzing what it really means to have an accent. It means that I can speak more than one language. It means that I come from a different background and that I have probably had different experiences than a native speaker. It means that I come from a different culture. My accent represents who I am and I should be proud of it. If a company decides not to hire me or has a certain view of me because of my accent, do I really want to work for them? Would I feel valued and appreciated, not only as a professional, but as a human being?
