Silencio, Roberto

I woke up with terrible English today, but I already know the drill. Stay quiet. Nod your head. If forced to speak, stress your R’s and T's.

Hopefully someone understands.

I named my accent Roberto, because like the kid who told everyone in the third grade that I had lice, my accent is an asshole.

He shows up when I have class presentations, job interviews, and order pizza on the phone. Yet, he's never around when I need to get out of a driving ticket, or when other Latinos ignore me because they think I'm just from New Mexico.

I despise Roberto, but being someone who moves places too often, I'm sort of glad for his consistency in my life. But that’s not the only thing that Roberto has brought me.

By having an accent, comes judgement; things that may or may not be true.

If it’s a good English day, people think I’m smarter than I am. If it’s a bad English day, people compare me to a caveman.

Most of them are inoffensive, but there’s been people in the past that deduced so many things about me just from my inability to differentiate jail and Yale. That I probably drink too much. That I have seen things. That I definitely love hot sauce–which I do. No, the only thing you should be able to tell from Roberto is that I have an accent. Just as much as you have one to the British and they have one to you.