“How may I help you?” the woman said. She greeted me from behind the counter of my dog’s doctor.
“I am here for Easy. She needs a rabies vaccination,” I said. She found my dog’s record, and she asked if I had an email address. I started to spell it. Once. Twice. Three times. She didn’t get it. I wrote it on a piece of paper. At the end, she got it!
I could swear to god she was annoyed at my “accent.”
An “accent” is not necessarily a bad characteristic one may have. “There’s nothing wrong with your ‘accent’,” people tell me from time to time. Of course, an “accent” is not a sin, but it becomes an unfortunate attribute if the audience don’t know how to listen. With the time, I am learning that people barely hear what others say, and if the tune is not the right one, if the “other” bears an “accent” forget it!
An “accent” may be funny. YouTube has many videos that mock the (Italian) “accent.” And it is okay. But people should never forget that behind that “accent” there is a human being, who lives and breathe just as Americans do.
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2 comments:
This really is a fantastic post. It is very true that Americans can be ignorant to the fact that an accent doesn't equate to a negative.
I am a server and I deal with regular Americans every day. However, I work in an area where there are a lot of tourists and they regularly come in. I once had a table of four German people who had literally just gotten off the plane and come to my restaurant for lunch. They were starving from the long flight.
I made my best effort to treat them as nicely as I could.
They were the kindest group of people I have ever served. Generally, so is every other person who carries a foreign accent. I don't think its a coincidence.
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