In regard to the image of the South in the imagination, it seemed much of that has been shaped by the media itself, going back at least to the films of the 1930s. All of this is subject to a lot of interpretation, but it seems there may have been more of a spirit of reconciliation between North and South in the years following the Civil War than may be apparent now. You have, for example, stories of Union and Confederate veterans getting together and talking about the war and that sort of thing. In the Spanish-American War, General Joe Wheeler who had fought for the Confederacy was now fighting for the Union. (Although supposedly in one battle he got mixed up and called the Spaniards Yankees.) No one thing can be pinpointed, but movies of the 30s onward began portraying Southerners as evil, ignorant, and that sort of thing. This seemed to be intensified by what was shown on TV. I was in Ohio once in the early 80s, and someone said to me much of what he knew about the South is what he learned from watching "The Dukes of Hazard." A teacher from Ohio said he had driven through places like Alabama once and was very disappointed he didn't see any plantations. I was talking to an Ohio principal once about a possible trip I might take to South America. I had mentioned something about speaking some Spanish. She said something to the effect that it would be difficult since my Spanish would sound so much like Spanish dominated by a Southern accent. I was astounded when I quickly realized she was assuming my Southern accent would carry over into my Spanish, almost like it was something like a speech impediment. Native speakers of Spanish have told me this is not the case. If there is any criticism of my Spanish, it is that I might sound more like Pope John Paul II speaking Spanish than a Southerner. It isn't a Southern accent, but it does sound somewhat wooden to a native speaker, like the Ecuadorian girl once told me when she said my Spanish reminded her of the Pope speaking Spanish. Of course, I have had other native Spanish speakers, though, make more complimentary comments by saying that my Spanish accent was pretty good. But the point is having a Southern accent in speaking English has nothing at all to do with speaking Spanish, at least for me. Then there is the question of the Southern accent itself. Some Americans think it's quite an accent, some thing it's slight, others can't hear a Southern accent at all. I even had one guy from Colorado ask me if I was from New York City. In Holland, I once had someone ask me if I was from Canada. When I was in Ireland for months one time, I didn't have a single person who had any difficulty at all in understanding me. In fact, it was obvious they could understand me much better than some other Americans do. I do, however, seem to pick up whatever accent I'm around. In the case of Ireland, some people from Holland I was around quite a lot told me that I was beginning to speak in a very slight Irish accent. I think I did faintly hear that myself right before I left to go back to America. If you're somewhere for several months, I think that kind of thing can happen to anybody, even if it isn't intentional.
