The mystery of children's Hispanic accents.

I’m trying to solve a mystery.

In elementary school, my fellow students and I had to take several years of Spanish. They were exactly like any language classes you’d take in school, albeit tailored for children. There was a fair amount of English spoken, but also many instances where we were called upon and asked to give an answer in Spanish.

As it was Miami, the class was full of Hispanic kids, but in the 90s, there were also a fair amount of gringos.

These white kids were called upon to answer in Spanish, too, just like anyone else. Their accents weren’t perfect, but they were still expected to try. “Dónde está la biblioteca?”, out of the mouth of my Jewish friend, for example, may have ended up sounding more like, “DOHN-day ay-STAH la BEEB-lee-oh-tay-cah?”

And therein lies the mystery. Were the white kids enunciating their Spanish like this because they were just not putting in effort to say the words accurately, or were they sincerely unable to procure a better Hispanic accent?

What I mean is, if Todd said, “MAY YAH-moh Todd,” in a very flat, “white bread” accent, was he actually, truly unable to verbalize “me llamo” as naturally as a native Spanish speaker, or was he just employing a jaded fourth grader’s brand of protest – not trying?

See, most kids in my elementary school didn’t like taking Spanish, even the native speakers. It was nerdy, the teachers were earnest, and despite the foreign language, the lessons were still somewhat babyish. You’d look like a huge dork if you put on a “thick” accent when answering a question, and it was mentally and physically “tough” to keep one going. My class period wasn’t for the native speakers, but we still downplayed our accented answers to sound as casual as possible.

I had grown up concluding that all of these kids were actually able to speak in perfect Hispanic accents if they wanted to. . . but that they simply didn’t want to.

But then, as I continued to take Spanish in later years, I found that both high school and college classmates still struggled with their accents. I’d be in a Spanish II “honors” course at my university and find that well-meaning, respectful, motivated students gave thorough, correct answers. . . whilst never shifting out of their American dialects.

This couldn’t still be a product of lazy effort. . . could it? These high-achieving students would surely be giving their best attempts. Were they really just unable to produce a natural accent at all? And why?

I wish that my own experience could inform the mystery, but I grew up living right on the cusp. I did not speak Spanish, but I heard enough of my abuelos’ accents to be able to imitate them on the spot. For me, answering a question in Spanish and using a proper accent were one in the same. I would’ve never looked at a calendar on Wednesday and said, “OY ays me-YAIR-coh-lays,” as it would’ve seemed both incorrect and more difficult than pronouncing the words “properly.”

So was that little bit of Spanish-speaking influence enough for me to effectively have been “immersed” in it? Or was I just a good imitator? Was this the skill of a linguist, or an actor?

It just seems wild to me that vocal utterances I find so easy to imitate could’ve been so impossible for my peers to make. I know that that is one of the most essential truths of being a native speaker of one language and not another, but I am not talking about an adult Japanese speaker trying to learn English. I’m talking about school-aged children in Miami attempting to imitate a commonly-heard accent when they can already say the words mostly correct.

So, which is it? Were my classmates being lazy, or were they truly unable to master their Hispanic accents?

Unfortunately, the mystery seems unsolvable, as I am not in contact with any of those classmates anymore. Come to think of it, almost everybody I know these days can speak Spanish, at least at a beginner’s level. Or, they’re a good enough actor or imitator to pick up the accent. I literally do not know anybody who does not either speak Spanish, have some kind of connection to acting, or both. I have no way to get to the bottom of this.

I can’t solve the mystery. . . CAN YOU? ✍︎