For too long I was embarrased of my Xicano accent. Frankly. I cringed into a hell of angst and embarrassment whenever my i’s* faltered and betrayed an otherness that was far from the american ideal.
Here in Europe I can retrace and notice this patttern of linguistic perfection sought out by english monolinguals in proper 51 and a DC. Spanish people can still notice whenever someone says a double ll in the form of a y or whenever someone pronounces their z’s like s’s. Sweden is the same, you can’t pronounce a word wrong because all hell breaks loose.
The same way in WASP land. Since they only speak english they tend to be preservationists of a sort.
People will actually doubt if you are an American based on the way you pronounce your english, such are the state of things in our beloved Area 51.
So I cringed and hurriedly tried to cover up my imagined nakedness. I felt uncovered.
*Jejeje, I wrote this back before the Blog Era, check it out, however, if you don’t wanna here is the relevant snippet for this piece:
In my first year of study, that would be Winter 2000, I studied phonetics which was as strange to me as the relativity theory. At any rate, the book assigned for the reading is titled `On Pronounceable English’ by David Minugh, (a New Yorker) University of Stockholm 1991 (Corrected Edition). On page 47 you’ll find how to pronounce the vowel `i’ as in /sit/. Along that pronounciation there is a word of caution, get aload of this, and I quote ” …But if you pronounce an accented /I/ like /i:/, as in >>kid , kidnapper< <, you will sound like the stereotype Mexican bandit!" Talk about a 60's flashback.