Everyone has an accent
Victor Rivera
Have you ever tried to fix something about yourself just to feel more normal? I did.
I thought that if I could smooth out the edges—change how I sounded, carried myself, or showed up—I’d finally belong. I thought that playing the part would make me feel complete.
For years, I believed that removing the parts of myself that felt out of place—like my voice or the awkward way I entered conversations—would finally help me fit in. That I’d be believable. Respected.
Early in my career, I signed up for an accent reduction class at The New School. We stood in front of mirrors, doing tongue exercises: forced shapes and strange stretches. It felt like rehearsing lines for a role I was ill-fitted for. But I stayed because I thought that's what grown-ups do.
Back then, I believed that this part of me was the problem. If I could fix my voice, I thought I could also fix the unease underneath it.
One day, after class, I overheard my teacher chatting with a colleague. Her real voice slipped out—thick, local, unmistakably hers. She sounded just like Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny—fast-talking, unapologetic, pure Brooklyn.
And suddenly I got it: she has an accent. Everyone does.
My British mates.
My Long Island buddies.
My Brooklyn homeys.
My Washington Heights fam.
Anyone who thought themselves a New York native carried their own unmistakable sound. As did I.
That was the moment the whole script split open.
Because it wasn’t just about my voice—it was about the lie I’d swallowed: that I could edit myself into someone else and call that growth. That if I could manage the optics of me, I could skip the work of actually being me.
But the idea of self is far from self-evident.
The self isn’t a neat, little part that you can adjust like a radio dial. It’s a mess, a shape-shifter, a voice that adapts to the room, yes—but still belongs to you.
That day, I quit the class and took something back.
Not just my voice—but the truth beneath it: That who we are doesn’t require translation. It doesn’t need fixing. It only needs someone to say, “You don’t have to hide that part anymore.”
That's what the inner work is all about. It does not fix the reflection, but it allows you to face the person who has been standing there the whole time.
Not to be perfect, but to remember. To remember what’s already there.
Anyway, now I know, and now you know, this is my voice.
Yours is probably cooler. But do you believe it?
