She sure did. When I listen to her speak English, she sounds far more Mexican than Slavic.

Steve Kaufmann offers her as an example of a non-native who deeply wanted to belong to the culture of Mexican speakers. Now even Mexicans think she was born in Mexico..
______________________________

Steve Kaufmann: But part of it is that you wanted to be Mexican.
You wanted to fit in.
And I think that’s a very important part of, of learning a language.
And it’s a very important part of pronunciation.
So if you, you want to be like them, you want to be part of that.
So then you don’t resist the way they pronounce things.
You absorb the way they pronounce things.
You start to use their, their structures, their, and their, their, their
phraseology and all of these things, because you, you sympathize with them.
You want to be them.
And I think that’s a big part of pronunciation and a big
part of language learning.

–Steve Kaufmann, “Key to Pronunciation: Feel You Want to Belong”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8WtLT5yq_E

From what I’ve read, YouTubes I’ve watched and my own experience, speaking a foreign language like a native speaker is a problem because:

(1) It’s usually very difficult to retrain your mouth, ear, and brain for a different set of phonemes.

(2) To speak like a native also feels at a deep level like renouncing one’s own tribal group and claiming membership in another. Both feel wrong. It can be done, of course, but one must work on both fronts.

I feel like a fool and poser when I lean into a French accent as I practice French.

But that’s a barrier one must break through. Otherwise one is just another American saying BAWN-jor for Good Morning.

Well and good. You understand how your persona could be problematic for others and it doesn’t particularly concern you.

However, from what I read earlier you didn’t seem to understand how other people might not care or might even relish how their persona would be problematic for you.

Humans are always signaling what groups they belong to and what groups they don’t belong to.

It may seem silly, but that’s how we work. We are deeply tribal.

Generally I find that conservatives don’t understand this.

To add to that picture of the persona I present, add my thick white mustache and sometimes unruly beard–at work, one Christmas, they asked me to play Santa Claus.

The persona I’ve adopted is for comfort, and I present–I believe–as some species of farmer–in winter a ball cap, heavy blue jeans, heavy suspenders, a casual long sleeve shirt, in the summer the same ball cap, shorts, a short sleeve shirt, and as always, running shoes.

During my career as a government reference librarian in D.C., I never did like confining monkey suits, and in fact, at my work I once scandalized my whole workplace–at get togethers they’re still talking about it to this day, I believe–by wearing shorts to work a few days during a very hot summer, when I was working at my desk, behind the scenes, and not in contact with the public.

Unfortunately, a that time they had not adopted any dress code and, when challenged, I merely pointed out that some of the female staff were wearing pedal pushers to work.

I must admit, while it probably didn’t help my chances for promotion to management, I really enjoyed pushing their buttons.

I guess I am stubborn, and a contrarian.

As “Rules for Radicals” advised, “make them live by their rules,” or, the lack thereof.

Quite so. It’s complicated.