Englishman in Texas
ENGLISHMAN IN TEXAS – August 20, 2025 – San Antonio, Texas, USA
Most visitors to the Alamo were surprised admission was free. After paying to see nearly every other famous attraction, they marveled over the site’s open grounds and the people who kept it running. Volunteers stood at nearly every corner and in front of every display to answer questions.
One such volunteer, proudly wearing a nametag that read “Ian Cheeseman,” looked so much like a prototypical Alamo Tour Guide, he could have been AI generated. His hat, boots, denim pants, and long sleeve cotton shirt were modeled on the Texas Ranger law enforcement officers who stood guard over the flagpoles. Ian kept a carefully groomed mustache and a trim physique. As he stood with his hands behind his back and a steady eye on the passing crowds, he appeared ready for either a heroic rescue or to amaze a guest with a heart-stopping story. He was truly a model representative, until he opened his mouth.
Ian’s standard greeting was not, “Where y’all from?” with a dose of Texas twang. Instead, Ian usually said, “May I answer any questions?” in the most proper, aristocratic British accent imaginable.
Ian was not a Texas native. He grew up north of London on a country estate. The property was not immense and his family did not carry any royal titles, but they could be classified as “well off.” Ian attended private schools where he received the modern equivalent of a classic British education. His parents loved written and spoken language and proper enunciation was hammered into Ian at home and at school. Using slang expressions, unnecessary contractions, and what his parents called a “lazy tongue” was strictly forbidden. According to the Cheeseman family, abusing the English language was a sure sign you belonged to the lower and criminal classes.
While attending university at Cambridge, Ian enjoyed many clubs and traditions. He liked Cambridge so much, he stayed on for an advanced degree in biology. And then, like many students in England with well-off parents, he took a gap year to travel the world before finding a job.
Part of Ian’s travels included his first visit to America. His expectations were low, but he continued to be amazed by each new city and state. He found the country to be vast and the people energetically optimistic. And he decided Texas was the most American place of all. It was the vastest, the most energetic, and the most optimistic. Quite unexpectedly, he found himself yearning to be not only an American, but a Texan.
Ian shocked and dismayed his parents when he leveraged his biology degree to land a visa and a job in a San Antonio research lab. He moved into a downtown apartment only blocks from the Alamo. Ian felt drawn to the busy Alamo Plaza where he learned everything possible about its history. For some inexplainable reason, he felt he belonged there. The feeling was much stronger than anything he had experienced at Cambridge.
It did not take long for Ian to figure out he could volunteer his time at the Alamo. That included acting as an information guide posted at strategic locations. He threw himself into a self-directed crash course on Texas history before requesting an interview for the volunteer job. His interviewer was so impressed, she immediately added Ian into the volunteer rotation. Volunteers did not have a specific dress code, but Ian immediately purchased a uniform for himself, patterned after what the Texas Rangers wore.
From his first day, Ian eagerly engaged with anyone passing his station. Those who stopped to listen heard stories of Davy Crockett and the Alamo’s defenders fighting the army of Santa Anna. When voiced by Ian in his formal English accent, names like Davy and Santa Anna sounded strange to American ears. “Davy” became “Dawvy.” Santa Anna became “Sawntaw Awnaw.” Even “Alamo” had an unusual ring to it.
When they first heard him, Ian’s listeners often thought he was joking with the accent. They giggled and waited for him to switch into a more Texas-appropriate voice that matched his appearance. But Ian was such an enthusiastic storyteller, most visitors forgot about the mismatch after a few minutes.
After months of volunteering as an impromptu information guide, Ian’s ambitious personality made him wonder if he might do more with his talents. Top-tier volunteers got to lead paid tours and give long narrations as they walked inside the mission church and around the grounds of the Alamo complex. Ian requested the more challenging job, something he viewed as a promotion. Lillian, the woman in charge of volunteer assignments, called him in to review his case.
If there was anyone who loved Texas more than Ian, it was Lillian. She was a couple generations older than him and wore a cowboy hat and dresses decorated with Texas flag logos. Unlike Ian, she spoke with a thick Texas twang.
“Let me start by thanking you for your service,” Lillian said as she and Ian sat in the little office reserved for volunteer coordination.
“I consider it a great honor,” Ian replied with a satisfied smile.
“Like everything these days, we ask for visitor reviews and try to pay attention to what they say. Let me pull up anything people have said about you.” Lillian leaned closer to the computer screen on the office’s desk. “I see things about you being smarter than the internet. Very loyal to Texas. I like the sound of that.” Lillian paused to read more before saying, “Huh.”
“What is it?”
“A couple of folks thought your accent was distracting. One person said they felt like they were in Buckingham Palace. I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I’m afraid my accent is a part of who I am.”
Lillian turned away from the computer and looked Ian straight in the eyes. Then she put her hand on her heart. “I can feel you love Texas the same way I do. This is a big state with room enough for all kinds of people. But when folks come to the Alamo, and they’re paying for a tour, they expect it to sound a certain way.”
Ian sensed that Lillian was about to deny his promotion. It would be the first rejection he had ever heard. He panicked a little and said, “My accent is a part of me, but that does not mean I cannot change. I can work on sounding more American. More Texan. I can adopt some different words and phrases. Like y’all. More San Antonio and less Buckingham Palace.”
Lillian acted impressed. “That’s mighty generous of you. I gotta say, I do like the sound of that offer. How about we let you practice first and then we’ll talk about it again?”
Ian was surrounded by language examples from which he could learn. His coworkers, fellow volunteers, and new friends all provided a version of an American accent. None of them had the twangy drawl of Lillian, but as Ian listened carefully, he was able to imitate common expressions. He spent leisure time watching episodes of TV shows based in Texas, like Friday Night Lights, and repeated the dialogue. Then he practiced at his Alamo volunteer station.
“Howdy! Where y’all from?” Ian asked as a new greeting. Using what he considered poor grammar felt like stroking a dog backwards, but the more he practiced, the longer he was able to continue his borrowed American accent before slipping back to the more comfortable Cambridge English.
Lillian listened in the background and shared words of encouragement. “You’re doing great. I don’t expect you to sound like me, we just don’t want your accent to be a distraction.”
After three months of practice, Lillian finally decided Ian could train for the private tours. He worked with a senior guide doing more and more of the talking each week. And then Lillian decided he was ready for his first solo run. Ian put on a new name tag indicating his elevated status and went home to anxiously imagine the first group that would be all his. He hoped for a family traveling across the country to see the best sites. He could already picture the faces of innocent young children and admiring adults who would hang on his every word as he revealed the Alamo’s secrets.
The next afternoon, Ian arrived early to his post and nervously practiced his greeting. When his first group showed up, it was exclusively made up of sunburned adults wearing unflattering tank tops. Several of the men looked bleary-eyed, like they had walked directly out of one of the nearby bars. Nearly the opposite of the sweetly innocent kids Ian anticipated.
“Where y’all from?” Ian asked in his friendliest voice.
“London,” one of the sunburned men curtly answered.
Ian fought the urge to reply that he knew a thing or two about London. Instead, he said, “I hear London’s a big place. You from any particular part?”
“Hackney, if ya know it,” the man replied in the type of cockney accent Ian had grown up avoiding.
“I’ll bet it’s a fine place.”
“Wish I was back there now and out of this heat. I’m boiling,” the man said, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.
Ian politely began his narration and led the group around the gardens and mission walls. He passionately described the battle that took place but his visitors only scoffed and talked over him.
“Sounds like this lot had a beef with the other lot. I ain’t bovvered.”
“It’s all so hot and boring.”
Ian tried to describe the bravery shown by the Alamo heroes while the Londoners looked at their phones and joked back and forth. The group walked into the quiet mission church where Ian spoke reverently and showed pictures of how the place looked before the battle.
“It’s all a bit shabby and small, init?” one of the louder guests said with a laugh. He looked at Ian and added, “I don’t see what you Yanks think is so special.” Then he laughed and said, “I mean, y’all Yanks.”
Ian silently fumed as the group cackled and then stared back at him wearing goofy grins. “Where’s the good stuff?” one of them asked.
Ian could no longer stand it. He dropped his fake American accent and addressed the group as if they were Parliament. “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are embarrassing yourselves and your fellow countrymen. You stand on hallowed ground and I demand you give it the respect and honor it deserves.”
Every eye in the group widened and every back straightened. Ian’s tone instantly reminded them of reprimands they had heard from school teachers back home. The oldest woman in the group spoke up meekly and said, “My apologies, sir. We’ll be on our best behavior.”
Ian conducted the remainder of the tour using his natural accent. The Londoners sheepishly followed him around, nodding their heads and pretending to be awestruck.
The five-star review from Ian’s first tour was one of the best he ever received. Comments included the phrases, “Absolutely brilliant,” and “Best tour since visiting Buckingham Palace.”
After reading the review, Lillian said, “I like the sound of that.”
Ian continued to give highly rated tours. He always began posing as a native Texan. But if the occasion called for it, he was always ready to slip back into the role of converted English transplant.
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