Coming from a foreign country and growing up with Australian friends, I had a strong Australian accent. While two years in America have made it more subtle, I have been told nonetheless that it still peeks out at times.

And then, of course, there are times when I play up my accent to gain certain advantages or to surprise someone new. But it was this situation that got me thinking, why was my accent so advantageous to me?

Over the summer and winter break, I worked at a job that required regular interaction with people and throughout that time, I was repeatedly told how incredibly attractive my accent was. Upon asking why they thought so, many often gave the vague answer of “Any foreign accent just sounds incredibly attractive. You sound so intelligent when you talk.”

Being only human, I remember feeling very flattered the first few times I was complimented and from there I quickly learned that the more I played up my accent, the more tips I received.

But was it really simple flattery? Or was there something more to it?

I remember observing a fellow Asian coworker of mine on my breaks and watching her communicate with the customers. While we were both noticeably Asian and spoke fluent English, she had a Filipino accent as opposed to my Australian one.

If the men had indeed been simply attracted to foreign accents, she would find this as advantageous as I did. And yet curiously enough, she did not.

In fact, the attitude men often took with her was the polar opposite of mine. They took on a highly condescending attitude towards her for no good reason. I have seen this attitude repeated many times over my life towards my mother, sister, friends, and in this case, coworker, all of whom had ranging “Asian accents.”

This microaggression permeates much of our lives. While growing up, my mother refused to communicate with me in English for the first eight years of my life. She later explained that she wanted me to learn English from others to develop a “non-Asian” accent, because she felt this would prevent me from facing the same form of discrimination and microaggressions my family and so many others suffer on a daily basis.

Because, for some reason, our worth and intelligence are often measured by our accents and by the region our accents originates from. Despite the claims that all accents were desirable, it was clear that some were seen as significantly more attractive and linked with more positive connotations than others.

Being visually identifiable as Chinese, I am often quite literally exoticized by men who often have no shame in stating this fact out loud, grinning at me as if they had offered this woman the greatest compliment she would ever receive in her life.

To many of the men I have come across over time, I am no more than an object that fits into a category of fetishes that he romanticizes and uses for his pleasure. My accent changes that.

Placed on a pedestal, my Australian accent is seen as racially and hierarchically superior to if I had a normal Asian accent that comes with one learning a new language. Now I am not only “exotic” and a fetish, but also seen as both intelligent and attractive. But why is my intelligence correlated with my accent?

Regardless of the inflections and tones I have while speaking, I strongly believe that my intelligence and worth remain the same. So why is it that our worth is being determined by something as superficial as an accent?

I was privileged enough to receive education in the only school that had a large number of white students attending. Without that experience, I would possess a very different accent, but my overall worth would not be diminished by it. So why is it that I am only seen as intelligent and more than a simple “fetish” only when the men I encounter hear my accent?

This racial hierarchy is extremely problematic and is constantly present in the lives of people of color. In a day and age where outright racism in certain countries is not as tolerated as in the past, these more subtle but equally harmful forms of microaggression take over and dictate the lives of people of color.

It is important to remember that just because racism is not as visible as it once was, it is still present and living at large within our community. It affects the lives of not only us, but our children and future generations. It is important to acknowledge its presence and tackle the problems that it brings.

Carolyn Chen is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].