Journey Letters: Accents by Vrushti

My first letter addresses my struggle with my accent. In the beginning, I never thought of my accent as something to be ashamed of. It was when my friends started asking me to repeat certain words and then proceed to laugh over my pronunciation that I started to believe that something was wrong with the way my tongue shaped the words. As this continued, it instilled anxiety and fear in me. I started stuttering during presentations and I would have been able to deliver confidently before. I started mispronouncing words that I otherwise knew perfectly. I became so self conscious about my accent that I stopped raising my hand in class. I stopped voicing my opinion. I stopped making jokes. And when I did talk, I would jumble my words. My cheeks would burn and my hands would shake. I would break into sweats at the simple task of talking. When someone would look at me as if they didn’t understand what I said, I would instantly apologize for my accent. My eighth grade English teacher noticed this and suggested that I read Rupi Kaur poetry. Reading those poems started my journey of facing those struggles so I will start my letters with reading the poems. It has been very recently that I have started to accept my accent and speak up. The following letter is what I would like to say to the girl I was before and all other immigrants who are struggling with adapting to English as their first language.

ACCENTS

Dear desi girl whose mouth carries two worlds,

Be proud of your accent because it is your country speaking from within you.

Your country with a beautiful history and heritage.

Your country that has glorious mornings and golden sunsets.

Your country with it’s bustling cities and peaceful villages and everything in between.

Your country with its colorful festivals and over the top celebrations.

Your country which holds your heart. Don’t be ashamed of your broken English because the number of other languages your

tongue can speak are equally beautiful. Don’t refrain from speaking your mind just because you are conscious about the way the words sound on your tongue or if you

are scared that the words are not falling in the right place in your sentence. None of

this matters as long as you are confident.

So speak up as if the world has stopped at your voice. Speak up as if your voice is

echoing from the mountains, growing stronger at every echo. Speak up as if your voice and words hold the power of steel and the beauty of gold.

And once you learn to speak up, no force in this world, not even you yourself, would be able to easily suppress that voice or break that confidence.