Language barrier


I know the biggest thing that has called attention of others about my race is my accent in English, which I wasn't aware that I had a slight accent, but a situation I particularly remember was a girl, a friend she always, like, pointed out my mistakes in English.

Like, every single second she was correcting my English, correcting my pronunciation, correcting my word choice. And it got to a point where it just made me so self-conscious about how I spoke when I spoke to a friend that I, it just made me want to, like, not talk to her or talk to anyone. But I quickly realized that that's not how everyone treats me or sees me or thinks about when I talk, but it did feel very discriminating in a sense.

Viviana Fernandez

Viviana Fernandez is a junior studying Biolopgy at the University of Notre Dame. Fernandez grew up in Puerto Rico and studied abroad in London in the fall.