Will i always be discriminated because i refuse to talk with american accent?

Question

I am american, but my parents are frm mexico. My first language was spanish. I have an accent, and i like to talk with it, make fun accents.. yeah sometimes i try to talk like what is considered standard american accent, but i don't like it, it's just not me. My english is completely understandable even with the accent, but i feel that people discriminate me because i don't conform to the standard accent. Here's what i get:
-companies think i'm mexican who doesn't speak english and dn't want to hire me
-even if i'm hired, they all treat me like i'm different
-in hospitals, eye doctor or whatever, even hispanics working there will listen to me, and just because i don't talk with standard english accent they start speaking spanish. They fail to understand my spanish is even worse than my english..what a bunch of dummies.
-Foreign people( japanese/chinese) will see me as not american, and thereofre they don't want to be friends with me because i'm supposedly not american.

Answer 1

Probably, but I'm Mexican also and don't speak a lick of spanish. I don't even have the accent, and I still get the same deal as well. I get people all the time asking me to translate things into spanish, and then when I say that I can't it blows their mind that I don't speak Spanish. Hispanics (overall, though I have found some with the same situation as me) also speak spanish to me immediately. Then when they find out I don't speak spanish, the general reaction is one of disgust like I sold out or something (My parents taught me English only believing I'd learn Spanish in school with the other kids, but then we moved to S. Carolina and so I never learned spanish). That or they assume I must not be Hispanic and start trying to place me in India or China or something like that.

Racism will always be there, we just have to accept it and do what we can to get around it and to change it, but we will never fully get rid of it.

Answer 2

I don't understand:
1) if you're speaking enough English for the prospective employer to hear your accent, why do you think that they'll think you don't speak English?
2) I don't know anyone who feels like they're being treated differently at work because of an accent. If you're being treated like you're different, it maybe because of something else.
3) If other Spanish speakers hear your Spanish accent and want to speak to you in spanish, you shouldn't call them "dummies". It's possible that they may think it would be easier for you and they may be doing that out of curtesy, not ignorance.
4) Foreign people have lots and lots of foreign friends. If they are not choosing to be friends with you it's not because of your accent. It's likely that there is another reason.
I don't know you, so i won't pass any judgment, but I have a strong feeling that you maybe blaming your accent on things that you may need to work on in your relationships as they pertain to your job and social life. It's much easier to blame your accent than to look in the mirror and search your soul and personality, but if you want to get to the bottom of your interpersonal issues, you'll be a much happier person to modify your attitude. No one is born knowing how to be social, it's learned, but you must be willing to want to; you can't change what you don't acknowledge.

Answer 3

You probably will. It's a stigma that will sadly probably never go away. If I were you, I would drop my accent in situations that it would bother me (the hospital, or at an interview, like you said).

There's no sense in upsetting yourself in a situation where you know a what a certain action will cause. You may see it as giving in to the discrimination, but you really aren't. You're helping reverse it by proving that immigrants, and children of immigrants do care about America and are willing to show it by doing things like making an effort to speak the language well, for example.

I do things every day that I don't like. I don't smoke a cigarette at work because the job called for a non-smoker. I wait all day to smoke when I get in the car on the ride home and you know what? It's worth it. I could smoke, because it's my right to, and you can't fire me for it, but I'd rather just suck it up and take the better job.

To make a long story short, lose the accent when you need to, and stay true to yourself when you need to. Good luck with everything!

Answer 4

That is sad, but if I were you, if you are not comfortable with an American accent then continue to speak with the accent you have already, its their problem not yours.

Answer 5

"I'm sorry - either you're with us or against us".

But I'm chinese - with pure Canadian English accent, eh?

Answer 6

sounds like u allready answerd yourself

Answer 7

I guess if you want to sound ignorant and uneducated, that's your choice. However, with choice comes responsibility and consequences.