3:39am June 3, 2014

“Many of us have preconceived notions about people’s accents. We find Western European accents—French, British, Castilian Spanish, Italian—relatively appealing, while Asian and Mexican accents are experienced as unintelligible or offensive….if an employee speaks French well and English only moderately well, we aren’t bothered. however, if Filipinos, for example, speak Tagalog to one another at work, the assumptions are that they are purposefully excluding English-speakers, that they are not trying to learn English, and that they don’t care. A mean-spirited quality is attributed to the behavior.”

20,798 notes