You may not think you have an accent, but you do–everyone does. And the accent you might notice the least, is the one Hannah Shin craved.
A person’s voice is the first glimpse into their history. In diverse California – the state with the highest number of immigrants – the range of accents is broad.
But there was only one accent I wanted — the Californian.
I’ve lived in America since kindergarten, and I thought I would acquire a perfect Californian accent. Which is to say, the mainstream, “official” American accent. It’s the popular dialect of Hollywood, and one of the smoothest accents I’ve ever heard – so unlike my Korean language, characterized by sharp syllables and brisk pronunciation.
Most probably don’t see speaking with a local accent as anything special. Yet, to me, it was that golden dream of becoming American. All my dreams of living here wrapped in a neat package of simply mastering an accent. With so many different definitions for being American, I had chosen the simplest, and often unobserved, notion — my way of speaking.