"Accent" by Andrew Lam

Two weeks ago, I met a man from Egypt. I had never heard his accent before, and as I was adjusting to it, I kept having to ask him to repeat himself. He apologized for how terrible his English was, but it wasn't terrible by any means. He spoke it perfectly well. The only thing keeping me from understanding him was his accent -- and even that didn't last more than the few minutes it took me to get used to the way he spoke. He was still very self-conscious about it, despite that I told him I didn't mind at all.

Part of me thinks this self-conscious feeling is normal. When I speak Spanish, I am very embarrassed if my pronunciation falters. I'm afraid that the people to whom I am speaking may consider it disrespectful, a sign of ignorance, or both. It wouldn't surprise me if every second language learner experienced these feelings.

But there seems to be another part to all this -- at least, here in the United States. In his essay "Accent," found in the collection of essays called Perfume Dreams, Andrew Lam recounts wisdom imparted to him by his Uncle Tho: "Americans turn a deaf ear to foreign accents. You'll never get anywhere fast if you sound like a foreigner."

Indeed, when Lam's Uncle Tho arrived in the US at age forty-four, he took night classes to earn his BA and then -- "through Herculean effort," Lam writes -- made his way through law school. But these years of hard work did not prove fruitful, because Tho was unable to get work. "My uncle," Lam writes, "was not rejected for lacking qualifications or intelligence. It was his unruly tongue that gave his foreignness away, pronouncing him interminably alien and...unemployable." Nobody was willing to hire Tho, despite his obviously strong work ethic, diligence, and intellect.

Someone I know has a math professor with a very thick Chinese accent. My friend is always complaining about how this particular teacher should "work on" his accent, because it prevents the students from understanding much of the lectures. At first, I was able to see the sense in that argument, but when I sat in on my friend's class, I had no trouble at all understanding the professor.

Someone once told me I have "an ear for broken English." That may be, but at the same time, I think there's a difference between not being able to understand and not making an effort to understand. I know too many people who who are actually offended or "weirded out" by foreign accents, and who simply aren't willing to accommodate anything they aren't used to hearing.

I have seen this attitude not only toward foreign accents, but toward foreign languages as well. I know someone who bristles every time he hears people speaking Spanish at the supermarket. I bristle every time I hear something like this:

Tim James- This is Alabama "We speak English" Campaign Video

And I don't just hear this from GOP candidates in Alabama. I recently heard a similar sentiment expressed in a classroom here at Chico State.

What bothers me is the attitude I often find behind the idea that everyone should speak English in America. I'm fine with the notion that if you move to another country, you should probably learn that country's dominant language because it's practical to do so. Overwhelmingly, however, this isn't what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is xenophobia and nationalism. Both are embedded deeply in our cultural consciousness, but I think it would be worth it to address these issues.

This is, in part, why I support the idea of bilingual education and/or the use of texts which are not only contemporary but multicultural. Not only would it provide our students with the useful skill of speaking two languages, it would also contribute greatly to their cultural experience and perspective. I think it is crucial to expose young people to the wider world, and encourage them to interact with it and learn about it. This, I think, is the key component to achieving a greater level of racial and cultural sensitivity as a nation in the future.

I hope that this would lessen the pressure for immigrants like Andrew Lam and the Egyptian man I recently met, who are facing any number of difficulties in having to leave their homes behind and begin anew. I hope that this would lessen the racial and cultural tensions between the US and other countries on the national stage. I hope that this would help lessen this habit we have of "othering" in general.

I realize I am speaking in an abstract sense here, and that nothing is as easy as I just made it sound. It would be exceedingly difficult to implement this kind of education in what I would consider to be a truly successful way. But I've found that in life, saying "I can't" will never get you anywhere -- but saying "I will try" can take you places you never thought possible.