Accents

http://polaroid41.com/accents/

Sunday, March 7th, 2021 - 3:32pm.

Until I was 12 I lived in Edina, a Minneapolis suburb both well known enough and sheltered enough that “I’m from Edina” was a sufficient geographic marker for anyone I happened to meet. In 7th grade we moved to the small town of Lake Crystal and I realized that “I’m from Lake Crystal” only worked for people in a tight radius, otherwise I needed to say, “I’m from Lake Crystal, a town southwest of Mankato.” When I left for college in Iowa City, ‘Lake Crystal’ or even ‘Mankato’ didn’t mean much to the people I met there, so I added qualifiers, “I’m from Lake Crystal, in south central Minnesota, 90 miles southwest of the Twin Cities.” The student population at the University of Iowa draws heavily from Iowa and Illinois, so “Tina from Minnesota” became part of my identity.

In 2003 when I lived in Barcelona and then from 2004 when I moved to Paris, I started saying for the first time, “I’m American. I’m from the United States.” “Je suis americaine.” Over the past 17 years, I’ve said it countless times in countless different situations. Something I never thought about before leaving the United States is now one of my primary identifiers: Female, 40, American.

When I say, ‘I’m from the United States’ people often get a little sparkle in their eyes, “Really?! Where?” I can tell they want me to say New York or LA or Las Vegas...some place that seems exotic and exciting. When I say, ‘Minnesota’ the reactions vary: sometimes their eyes kind of glaze over with disappointment, sometimes they confuse it with Michigan or another place, sometimes they excitedly demonstrate that they’ve heard of it before (you’d be surprised at how often people say, “Minnesota! Like where Brenda and Brandon are from on 90210!” Why yes, I’m so glad you know my home state as a place two fictional characters moved away from.) I’ve gotten used to saying things like “It’s all the way in the north right in the middle of the United States, by the Great Lakes, Prince...Bob Dylan...the Coen Brothers…” While some people seem disappointed that I’m not from a big city, others seem genuinely delighted to meet someone from ‘real America.’

In Paris, there are lots of Americans but in Toulouse it’s more unusual. There are English speakers here, but they’re primarily from the UK. This means that people often take me as a sort of ambassador. Last November a TV news crew came to our apartment to interview me about my feelings and predictions regarding the presidential election. One time in a group of about 10 French people I sneezed and someone commented, “Oh wow, that’s how American’s sneeze.” Uuhhh… that’s how I sneeze… I’m not sure that it’s particularly representative of 330 million Americans.

I’m in an English-speaking book club here, there are seven of us, and I am the only American. Last week we met to discuss Glennon Doyle’s ‘Untamed’ and some of their comments pushed me to ask, “Wait, did you all feel like this book was really ‘American’? I was met with laughter and a resounding, “YES!” They asked, “What, didn’t you think it was American?” Ha...um. It just seemed normal to me!
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