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Accents and Cultural Identity Formation
By Mari D. González
“I have traveled more than anyone else, and I have noticed that even the angels speak English with an accent” ~Mark Twain
I love accents. I find them intriguing. They tell me that the speaker is bilingual. Accents define people socioculturally and correlate to their upbringing and ethnic, national, or group identity. Some accents are difficult to understand, some are melodious, and some take time to get used to. Our evaluations are subjective and relative to our personal opinions.
I am accustomed to accents. In California, there are immigrants in different professions including medical. I have interpreted for doctors from China and India who are not understood by patients with good second-language English fluency. Such difficulty is due to the patients’ lack of familiarity with people from those countries or perhaps they simply are not as intrigued as I am.
I came across an article written by a Peruvian author who spoke about the need to diminish one’s accent because “having a Spanish accent is seen as a minus.” None of my non-English-dominant colleagues have ever discussed accent reduction. This isolated “accent” perspective does not reflect the overall Latino/Hispanic concern.
Some immigrants demonstrate a greater desire to assimilate than Mexicans. It indicates a desire to fitting in instead of integrating. Mexican-American have a different perception of assimilation and actually oppose it. This opposition might be in response to U.S.-Mexican-specific historical factors.
The background of the current state of Latinos/Hispanics in the U.S. is the Chicano Movement. Whether we agree with it or not, the Chicano Movement is a point in history that precedes where we are now as a cultural group. It defines the second developmental stage of group identity formation called “Conflict.”
The first developmental stage of group identity formation is called “Identification with the dominant culture.” It is a desire to eliminate what makes one different from members of the dominant culture or assimilation. The author’s desire to reduce his accent implies being at this first developmental stage described as having a preference for an Anglo Orientation according to the research by Vasti Torres.
Reading Latino writers such as Rodolfo Acuña, Gloria Anzaldua, Hayes-Bautista, researcher, professor Amado Padilla, and journalist, Gregory Rodriguez help us understand the past and present context of Latino identity in the U.S. and why some people have a desire to assimilate and others to integrate.
European, Indigenous, and African in Mexico
By Mari D. González
I love personal stories and to see how they are part of the bigger picture. I have always been fascinated by the history of the borderlands. I majored in Business Management and Communications, but was allowed to do my senior research project on Chicano and Mexican-American Literature.
As a lighter-skin Mexican who had grown up believing the myth of having mostly European ancestry, this project was a real eye opening. The more I learned about who I considered the “other,” the more I felt connected with my indigenous side.
Culturally, Mexicans are more indigenous than we are ready to admit yet, “hay una directriz que nos separa,” there is fine line that separates us by color as a result of century-old-colonialist socialization.
To reconcile our true history, we must embrace our Indigenous, and our African ancestry along with our European. These three make up the Mexican culture and who we are. By seeing them as part of our broader culture, Mexicans will have acquired a broader ethnic identity.
* Image by Rajiv Perera
“Latino” Preferred in California
By Mari D. González
The term Latino/a is preferred in California because it is associated with a sense of self-power, “for more educated Californians, ‘Latino’ is the new Chicano in that it evokes their indigenous roots, a shared history of struggle and the colonization of the people in Latin American countries.” Alcoff, L. M. (2005). Latino vs. Hispanic: The politics of ethnic names. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 31(4), 395-407.
The Latino Movement and Cultural Integration
By Mari D. González
It is not uncommon to read outrageous statements in discussion in social media. I read this comment on a well-liked Latino blog: “Mexicans have no clue, their Spanish it’s is the worst among the Central American people.”
This was my response:
1) Mexico is part of North America not Central America, and NAFTA refers to the North America Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.
2) Mexican Spanish includes words from the 60 Indigenous languages officially recognized by the Mexican government. The extent of the Indigenous influence is due to Mesoamerica (Central Mexico southward through Central America) being the center of the first most developed pre-Hispanic civilizations in the Americas.
3) Most Mexicans are proud of their Indigenous background and cultural make up. As a Mexican, I speak Mexican Spanish because that is my mother tongue; I use Spanglish with my Latino(a) friends in the U.S.
While we acculturate and adapt to the United States by keeping up with the challenge of “straddling two cultures” that is a common topic among Latina bloggers, let us not forget where we come from and the values we learned there such as respect for language differences and the nuances of language use. Let us “preserve our unique cultural identities” and “continue defining ourselves” without shoving others out of the way.
Welcome to the sequel or Chicano movement Part II, which is now more about integration than differentiation, and should be termed the “Latino Movement.”
Univision Network No. 1 last week
Mari D. González
Does Univision, the largest U.S. Spanish-language TV network, understand that the largest Latino/Hispanic segment -young and bilingual- want relevance and quality in media?
The emerging young Latinos/Hispanics have been complaining about the lack of quality of programming at Spanish-language TV networks and that the English-language networks neither represents them nor includes them.
With the news that Univision has taken the No. 1 spot on viewership not only among Latinos/Hispanics but across the board, perhaps Univision is finally listening to this powerful market subgroup.
IXMATI 