Walking United Nations

I can identify very strongly with a line from the song "Sally" by Gogol Bordello, "I ended up being walking United Nations." As a result of being treated like a foreigner in my home town when I was in high school I know some of how people from other countries can feel when they are treated as outsiders. I did purposely get rid of my Southern accent. Initially this was because I did not want to have to change back and forth between speaking in a southern accent and singing with a more neutral accent when singing in the high school chorus. My father's family was from Upstate New York. His mother had graduated from Cornell University, but she had a hard time finding a teaching job because of that. With time her anti-Southern attitude lessened, but some of this attitude rubbed off on me. In addition to that I did not want my American accent to affect my accent in other languages. Somewhat unintentionally I allowed my accent in English to be affect by my learning other languages. Now it is mostly when I speak English that people say that I speak with a foreign accent. This is especially true when I am drunk or very tired. This happens less when I speak in other languages. I do admit that I do enjoy it when people try to guess my country of origin. I do think of myself as a citizen of the world instead of a citizen country. I know that that sounds like pretentious shit, but it is how I feel.