{"id":5625,"date":"2019-10-29T20:28:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T20:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socamom.com\/w\/?p=5625"},"modified":"2021-01-12T20:23:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T02:23:11","slug":"book-review-a-likkle-miss-lou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socamom.com\/w\/book-review-a-likkle-miss-lou\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: A Likkle Miss Lou"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I grew up in a house full of accents.<\/strong> Listening to old cassette tapes that my dad made while he was “interviewing” me, I can hear the Trinidadian lilt of my mom’s accent and the assuredness of my dad’s Tobabonian one embedded in my own little voice. To this day, hearing a Trinidadian or Tobagonian accent makes me feel comforted instantly, like I’m home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: <\/strong>Why I Don’t Have a Trinidadian Accent<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the house, my parents relaxed into their accents and patois.<\/strong> They used words that I never heard them say outside, and eventually, I knew not to use them either. Those words were for the house. That wild and reckless laugh was for the house. “Bacchannal” was a word that my white southern classmates wouldn’t understand. And the word “wotlessness” had no place on the playground, in the classroom, or in my parents’ professional circles.
I listened to my parents move from the comfort of their housebound dialects to the “Queen’s English,” without missing a beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it has a name – we call it “code-switching.” <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back then it showed me once again, that who I was at home wasn’t who I could, or should be outside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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