Stranger by Jorge Ramos

Author:Jorge Ramos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2018-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

Being an Immigrant in the Trump Era

My accent betrays me.

I say just a few words in English, and people already know that I wasn’t born in the United States. That I’m from somewhere else. I’ve been learning English for over three decades, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to speak it perfectly. I can communicate easily enough with most Americans, but my accent is ever present.

Many recognize it as a Mexican accent, but few know that there’s more to it than just that. It’s a chilango accent, from the northern part of Mexico City, where there’s a bit of a lilt to the words. That will always be there.

Many people don’t like it when I speak English with an accent. Especially when I do so on television, which is evidenced by the comments I get on social media. And this reminds me of a great interview that radio journalist Terry Gross did with the South African comedian Trevor Noah when his book, Born a Crime, was published. Noah, who replaced Jon Stewart after he stepped down from The Daily Show, speaks six languages and is an expert at identifying and copying accents.

“When you hear somebody speaking in an accent, it’s almost like they’re invading your language,” Noah said during the interview on Fresh Air. “It feels like an invasion of something that belongs to you. And, immediately, we change.”

It’s an acute observation. The fact of the matter is that a language such as English does not belong to anyone and we can speak it as we please to the best of our ability. But inevitably, someone will feel uncomfortable or even threatened by your accent, and that can make you feel very out of place.

Being an immigrant is inherently tied to this feeling. Occasionally for an entire lifetime. This much is clear in Edward Said’s book Out of Place.

Said was a scholar born in Palestine during the time of British rule. He studied in the United Kingdom and had taught at several universities in the United States. In his book, he explains what it’s like to come from many different worlds and feel many different streams coursing inside of you: “I occasionally experience myself as a cluster of flowing currents. I prefer this to the idea of a solid self, the identity to which so many attach so much significance. These currents, like the themes of one’s life, flow along during the waking hours, and at their best, they require no reconciling, no harmonizing….A form of freedom, I’d like to think, even if I am far from being totally convinced that it is….With so many dissonances in my life I have learned actually to prefer being not quite right and out of place.”

I find it interesting that Said describes this sense of being out of place as “a form of freedom.” In a way, it is. Many immigrants experience a moment of clarity during which they feel powerful and free. The reasoning goes more or less like this:

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