Shifters: On Language, Identity, and Becoming

What if the question “Where are you from?” isn’t small talk — but a trapdoor? In this episode, I’m joined by Xenia: Russian-speaking trilingual living in Madrid, English and Spanish teacher, American accent coach — and someone who knows what it means to live in several voices at once.

We talk about the actual multilingual experience: the selves that emerge in different languages, the homes you grow out of, and the subtle grief and freedom that come with becoming.

We get into:

- why “I’m a linguist” can feel truer than “I’m a teacher” ;

- why some of us say Siberia, not Russia ;

- how 2022 quietly rewired the emotional weight of “where are you from?” ;

- accent prejudice, identity flexibility, and the psychology behind “I want to lose my accent” ;

- fluency arriving before permission ;

- language not as a skill, but as a way of living .

This episode is for the people who don’t feel fully at home anywhere — and have stopped trying to force themselves into one version of themselves.