The Land Before Time, Highwater Shorts, & Taglish

As lighthearted as this topic sounds, it's taken me a while to respond. It might be because of the natural tendency to keep embarrassing moments private, or that there's too many it's hard to pick just one. It's probably a mix of both and a bunch of other things.

In the midst of hashing out memories and recollecting childhood oops-es, one Fil-Am related moment finally popped up. It was right after I trekked over from Olongapo to San Diego, dropping in right in the middle of second grade year and just missing the lessons on dinosaurs (which is probably why I refer to The Land Before Time a lot). On top of being the "new girl," I was the new girl who came from a different country, dressed differently, and most noticeable of all, talked differently. I remember having to step out of class to take ESL classes where I was first introduced to Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish crackers-the instructor's prize instead of gold star stickers. The embarrassing moment came when we were asked to do an oral presentation.

We were asked to create a commercial about a product we invented. We had to create a short script, put together a little jingle, and bring a visual of our product to present in front of the whole class. I called mine Rainbow Crunch cereal and I went all out. I had a little jingle to the rhythm of Barney's 'I Love You' song (I still remember the lyrics but I'll spare you) and I even dressed up in my highwater shorts with Disney character rip-off print. To tell you the truth, it wasn't embarrassing in the moment. Only now when I watch the whole thing on video tape (yes it was recorded) do I notice the sharp vowels and consonants rolling off my tongue. Don't get me wrong, it's not one of those traumatizing embarrassing moments, but it does make me wonder, "Why am I embarrassed of my accent?"

After a few movies and TV shows, it's clear that British accents are seen as witty, clever, and even hot. Other European accents have the same reception but why not Filipino accents? Or Indian and other Asian accents? The simple answer is because they sound different but I'm sure there's deeper reasons than just that, which I don't really want to get into just yet. Do you have any inklings?

The Filipino accent, taglish (mix of Tagalog and English), and other variations of Philippine dialects mixing in with its American English counterparts are comforting sounds when my ear picks them out in a crowd. There's a feeling of home when I randomly hear Fil-Ams speaking a language I share with them. This connection overcomes any embarrassment but I still wonder, why that hint of embarrassment pops up in the first place?

In that light, check out this short clip of Russell Peters and his interpretation of the Filipino accent.