Sometimes when I hear people with southern accents, I almost wish my own were stronger. It’s not because of a desire to sound southern so much as because I don’t want people to think I’m intentionally trying not to.
“Oh you’re from Mississippi! But you don’t even have a cute little southern accent! I’m so disappointed!” the Brown University yearbook photographer said as she rearranged my hair.
“I can fake one if you’d like,” I offered.
I wonder how differently you’d treat me if I sounded like my sister. I wonder if you’d take me seriously if my accent were as strong as my father’s. There have been several times when my mother’s called the university to ask a question, and the conversation has barely begun when the person’s tone of voice all of a sudden changes into something like fond amusement, a voice that suggests being on the same side of an inside joke. “Now where are you from?” they ask before the conversation ends.
From the article “Where to Go from Here” by Kayla Smith posted on Deep South Magazine.
I can relate. I was interviewed for a web commercial for the book The Help, and they were very disappointed in my lack of Southern accent, to the point where they asked me to add it back. I did, sort of, but that part was cut out. I guess they decided they preferred me as the sophisticated New Yorker who liked the book, over another Southern fan.
