Accepting me for who I am

I’ve always been aware that I have an accent when I speak. How could I not? English is not my first language. In fact, I didn’t learn English until I was 11 years old. During interviews and other assignments, some people point out that I have a “cute” accent. No one ever made me feel uncomfortable or self-conscious about it. That was until I took an advanced reporting class during Fall ’05. My professor was a former journalist who had won the Pulitzer Prize. I admire him because he has done all the things that I want to accomplish. The first day of class he singled me out and pointed out my accent to the class as a possible problem. I couldn’t help but feel bad about the comment. Ever since that day, every time I interview someone, every time I pick up the phone to call a source and every time I write a story, his words come to mind.

Today I feel different. Today I can finally say that I no longer am ashamed of that accent. I have come to embrace it.

It all started when I heard Getahn Ward speak to us. Ward is a Chips Quinn Scholar alum from 1994. He is a business reporter at The Tennessean in Nashville, where he has worked since 1998. After he welcomed the Scholars to the orientation, I was lucky enough to have him sit at our table. During our delicious dinner and dessert, he talked about his beloved country of origin, Liberia. He talked passionately about his experiences as a reporter there when he was only 15 years old. My eyes watered as he talked about what he saw during the country’s civil war, which took almost 14 years to end.

I decided to talk to him privately. He, too, wanted to talk. He wanted to talk about the newspaper where I will be working as an intern next Summer. I looked at him and told him that I wanted to ask him a personal question. He listened carefully. I gathered the courage to ask him if he had ever felt self-conscious or uncomfortable interviewing someone because of his accent. We shared experiences and talked about the issue for a couple of minutes, and he said something that I will never forget. He told me that the accent was part of him and that if the newspaper where I worked liked me then they would have to accept the accent because that is who I am.

-- Maria Ines Zamudio, Summer 2007 Scholar, Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader, and University of Illinois-Champaign