Category Archives: Profile

Sara ElHassan, Revolution and the in-between.

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Illustration of Sara ElHassan by Jordan Andrew Carter

If you follow Sara ElHassan on twitter be prepared for some sharp social and political commentary, complete with a little bit of sarcasm and zero tolerance for bullshit. Meeting Sara in person was actually not very different. She speaks with the rhythm of a spoken-word poet; Spelling out hard-hitting truths and filling every syllable with passion, she articulates her hopes for her country with insistence, and expresses her desire for the freedom of her people with urgency—a people that have risen once again in a revolution against years of oppression and dictatorship.

While I could easily imagine her as the loud protester at the front of the march, her determined rallying cry rippling through the crowds, the contributions Sara has made to the current revolt have actually come through the power of her writing—and from thousands of miles away, too.

As a freelance writer, blogger, poet and editor, she has always written about Sudanese social and political issues, publishing her work on her own blog, but also for publications with a wider reach like CNN and OkayAfrica. One of her more recent pieces on the art fueling the Sudanese revolution, a series of uprisings that have persisted since last December, reflects her commitment to strengthening the role of art as a catalyst for social change. She has held her belief in art as a revolutionary tool since moving back to Sudan after college and recognizing just how much passion and talent is waiting to be unleashed in her home country.

In 2012, together with several of her friends and collaborators, Sara started a monthly event series and literary club called Nas with Notepads in Khartoum that brought together aspiring writers and poets to engage in writing workshops, collaborative work and performance. The events were usually private and would be publicized through a mailing list. But after gaining a lot of traction and attracting 4000 participants, Nas with Notepads held their first public event as part of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. The event was a great success, but as soon as the first Arabic poem was read, the authorities shut it down. Eventually they had to stop holding events all together. 

Sara knew the power of literary art in influencing and educating. But until the current political movement began, putting into motion a wave of talent and energy in art that spread quickly and drove people to take to the streets, she had never understood that visual and graphic art could fuel change in her country to the same degree as writing. She hopes that by sharing this art on her social media, by writing about it and publicizing it, she can help fuel the revolution and reach people in a way that her alone words can’t and in the long run, she hopes to help create the environment for Sudanese artists to have the support they need.

I first met Sara when my student association invited her to give a talk at Wellesley based on a professor’s recommendation. Her talk was focused on gender, media and art of the Sudan Uprisings and it was completely different from any lecture or talk I had attended at the college in the past. Not only were we hearing from a highly sympathetic young person about a powerful political movement that had just ousted a long-standing dictator, but her perspective turned out to be very unique. Sara was born in the US, but lived in Sudan for many stretches of her life and since 2017 has been based in Arizona.

As a Sudanese-American she feels she is always in between—not Sudanese enough for the Sudanese, not American enough for the Americans. And it is from this vantage point that Sara writes about the issues of her country. “I am fortunate enough to have an outsiders perspective and be more critical but at the same time I have a very deep understanding of Sudanese culture. So my analysis is not lacking context.”, she explains. Though her in-betweenness comes with a set of challenges, she is grateful for the role she is able to play in amplifying people’s voices and putting the international spotlight on Sudan. She does it not only to fight stereotypes about Sudan, Africa and post-colonial countries in general, but also because an international eye on a local issue is a method of protecting those vulnerable to the brutality of dictators.

Sara ElHassan feels passionately about her people’s freedom and the important role that art and advocacy can play in making change. Her dream is for Sudan to have a civilian government that cares about its people and gives them the chances and opportunities they deserve in life.

Out in the Field: A Chat with Garmalia Mentor William

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“He-hello? Can you hear me?”

“Uh…yes. Are you there? Yes.”

After many hellos over the crackle of a poor connection, I come face-to-pixelated-face with Garmalia Mentor. The smiling Mentor sits in a parked car in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, as that is where her internet connection is the best.

A medical doctor graduated from the Escuela LatinoAmericana de Medicina in Cuba, with a Master’s degree in Public Administration in Emergency and Disaster Management from the Metropolitan College of New York, Garmalia has many years of schooling under her belt.

Her path has not been a linear one, and it has largely been driven by her overwhelming compassion for her community. Born and raised in Haiti, Mentor earned a scholarship to study medicine in Cuba. After six years of studying to become a doctor in a foreign language, she returned to Haiti and began working with the Ministry of Health. She remained in that post until 2010, a year when the lives of many Haitians were indelibly changed.

The earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, causing an estimated death toll of over 200,000, was devastating. It awakened in Garmalia, a desire to change the scope of her impact. She no longer wanted to work one-on-one with individual patients, but to reach entire communities.

She now works primarily on disaster preparedness, making communities aware of seismic risk, tsunami risk, and other hazards. She places a heavy emphasis on training representatives of the civil society, from women’s organizations, to social and economic organizations, to representatives of the media. Her approach is participative and inclusive, prioritizing institutional memory and inter-generational education. She acknowledges that public health, her original field, is still poorly served in Haiti. Her calling, however, is undoubtedly in the area of disaster preparedness and community training.

Garmalia is currently serving as a representative of GeoHazards International, a nongovernmental organization that aims to be “on the ground before disasters, helping communities prepare.” They strive to reach the most vulnerable communities, and prepare them for those disasters whose damage cannot be avoided, but whose impact can be mitigated through education, preparation, and awareness.

Through her work with GeoHazards International, Garmalia has thoughtfully tailored her outreach to the communities with which she works.

“Usually, projects are not conceived or designed in Haiti. This is the only concern I have. It’s nice, thinking about [developing] countries, and helping people, but it’s hard to know the real needs of a population without knowing them, without visiting the country. But, unfortunately, this is how projects, usually, are designed. People [elsewhere] read about the needs in Haiti and they just make a proposal. Once you’re working for [this kind of] organization you’re supposed to implement this project the way it is.” Garmalia adds that the difference with GeoHazards International is that the organization allows and encourages her to work in a more effective manner. This particular NGO has given her the opportunity and resources to tailor her outreach to the communities she knows well.

Garmalia believes in adaptability and in tailoring projects as thoughtfully as possible. She thinks that this is the best approach for communities in Haiti, and she raised this concern with her supervisors. “I’m the only one based in Haiti, and I’m the only one who knows the situation…so I tried to create some flexibility before implementing the project.” [Edit to add (23-sept-2019): Since our interview, Garmalia has been joined by other staff members in Haiti.] 

There are other organizations like GeoHazards International whose work involves similar disaster preparedness instruction. Garmalia’s approach is customized for each classroom, each church, each workplace that she enters. She teaches children to go home and teach family members who would not otherwise be reached. She believes in spending the time getting to know the community in order to foster long-term growth.

Garmalia’s passion is palpable. She has pushed herself beyond her comfort zone, fueled by a desire to reach as many people as possible. She has spoken on the radio, beginning to realize her dream of reaching whole communities and creating positive change. This mission of hers is also personal. As our video-call is dropped and I ring her once more to say goodbye, I recall what Garmalia said to me about her connection to Haitian communities compared to that of her colleagues who do outreach in other countries: “I’m based here. I’m just as vulnerable as the population. I’m vulnerable too.” Sometimes, advocating for a community means immersing yourself, being in the thick of it, and creating new and sustainable ways to overcome adversity. Garmalia Mentor is a magnificent example of what you can do to leave a community better off than you found it.

Honest Stories: An Interview With Melissa Li

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If I had to choose one word to describe Melissa Li, it would be honest.  In spite of significant success in her career, when asked if it is what she would have chosen for herself she doesn’t hesitate to let me know that it absolutely isn’t. With wry humor, she tells of how as a child she felt forced into music, and how when she gained her independence she wanted to distance herself from it as much as possible. Oh, how things have changed.  I suppose when you have as much talent as Melissa, music finds you whether you like it or not. Melissa’s current career is focused on writing musicals. Most notably, Melissa wrote the music for the musical Interstate as well as contributing to the book and lyrics in collaboration with Kit Yan.  Interstate premiered at the 2018 New York Musical Festival, where it was nominated for the awards “Outstanding Musical” and “Best Music,”  and won “Outstanding Lyrics” and “Special Citation: Representation and Inclusion.”

Why has Interstate racked up so much success? Because the real beauty in Melissa’s unapologetic honesty is not her willingness to share facts about her life; rather, it is how her dedication to the truth informs her storytelling.  Interstate follows the story of Henry, a South Asian transgender boy.  Henry takes comfort in the work of the other two protagonists of the show, the transgender man Dash and the lesbian Adrian, artists who are embarking on their first national tour.  When choosing what stories to tell, Melissa prioritizes choosing only narratives she can tell with honesty. The character Adrian is based on herself, and Dash is based on her partner Kit, a transgender man, who carefully reviewed Dash and Henry’s narratives for emotional accuracy.  That’s what makes Interstate so robust– it embodies the stories of real people and the way that those real people see their own stories and emotions.  Melissa explained to me that if she wanted to tell a story that were not her own, she either wouldn’t or would do it to assist someone else who was working to tell their own story.  Ultimately, she doesn’t feel like other people’s stories are hers to decide to tell.

Furthermore, she chooses to tell more diverse and uplifting narratives of queer people of color than the tragedies we typically see in mainstream media.  Melissa hopes that underrepresented people will not only see themselves in her work, but also that they come away feeling hopeful and supported. Even if that means passing up opportunities for her own career.  In our talk, Melissa shared with me that she and Kit were recently approached with an offer to produce Interstate commercially.  There was one condition though– they would have to cut Henry’s support system from the plotline.  Here, Melissa admitted to me what a difficult decision this proved to be. Commercial production, after all, would take away the stress of fundraising faced by independent artists, and would make her work widely available to general public.  Ultimately, she and Kit declined the offer. In spite of all the benefits it would provide, they could not justify adding Interstate, a work already cherished by many as an uplifting creative gesture, to the ever-growing list of work that casts queer people of color as lonely, afraid and sad.

Selfless and honest, Melissa is part of a new generation of artists.  She is working to create a space at the table for people who have traditionally been underrepresented in the whitewashed arts.  She seeks to tell traditional Broadway-style stories, the only difference between those stories and the ones she tells being the types of people she chooses to represent.  Her work is not what she considers radical. Still, she’s making waves in the world of theater, and honestly, it means a lot to people.

Broadcasting Nuance: An Interview with Rim Gilfanov

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Rim Gilfanov is the head of RadioLiberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service Azatliq, the only independent media in the Tatar and Bashkir languages available in Russia. In addition to English, he speaks Czech, Russian and Tatar. He has published several books, including Tatar Diaspora (1993) and Tatar Way of Reforming Islam (2003). Has written for publications ranging from the Kazan newspaper Donya to Al-Jazeera. He has been quoted in the Moscow Times, the Atlantic, and other publications. Gilfanov has given lectures at think tanks and universities and has met with members of Congress to discuss Russian democracy and minority rights. Imagine my surprise when my inbox pinged with an answer to my amateur request for an interview, or even just a general direction: “Your idea seems interesting, we can do it.” 

 

Having successfully navigated the Prague-Boston time difference and having found a time for the interview, I was surprised at how easily conversation flowed. I was immediately struck by his enthusiasm to share his work and passion and his openness in discussing the path that lead him to RFE/RL Prague headquarters. Gilfanov started listening to RadioLiberty’s service while he was in secondary school during perestroika. This experience of realizing that “someone else, some foreign power cares about your language, which was in jeopardy in your own country” shaped his future path and helped carve out his identity as a “real Tatar.” While at Kazan University pursuing a degree in sociology and political science, Gilfanov worked as a stringer for RadioLiberty in the 1990s, a time of political change and ideological tumult in Russia. He joined the RadioLiberty team officially in 1993, moving to Munich, and later to Prague, when the headquarters were relocated.  

 

“This is my dream job actually.” Even after 29 years of experience in journalism Gilfanov’s enthusiasm for engaging with people regardless of their relative knowledge of Russia and Eurasia is evident in every aspect of his persona. Tatarstan, one of Russia’s 22 republics among 83 federal subjects, is rather unknown to most Americans. However, Gilfanov takes advantage of every opportunity to share the history and current circumstances of Tatars with his audiences. Of all the history and politics that he cites in his regular spiel to interlocutors, the fact they find most surprising is that the Tatar language is nothing like Russian. People “think that in Russia, everything should be close to Russian. . . but it’s completely different.” Tatar is a Turkic language belonging to the Altai family.  

 

The Tatar language and the various barriers to its instruction and usage are among just a few of the minority-related issues that Gilfanov and other journalists and advocates have addressed in recent years. According to Gilfanov, globalization and technology crowd out spaces that were originally pockets for smaller regional languages. Even in the countryside, where Tatar and regional languages were once integral to daily life, Gilfanov sees the younger generation trading in their use of Tatar for Russian, English, or another global language. 

 

As if the trials of globalization were not enough, the Tatar language has faced political attacks from inside Russia. Though Russian law upholds the idea of space for minority groups and officials claim that they try to defend these languages, Gilfanov sees another view emerging that diversity undermines the unity of the state. This quest for unity, and the homogenous population it envisions pit minority and republic languages such as Tatar, Bashkir, and Chechen against a broad russifying agenda coming from Moscow.  

 

Gilfanov’s job on a day-to-day basis is to support broadcasts and news coverage in Tatar and Bashkir that address issues not covered by state-owned or state-restricted news channels in Russia. However, the Tatar-Bashkir service, along with the Georgian and North Caucasus services, supported in part by American aid, are at risk of being cut by Trump’s new 2020 budget proposal. According to Gilfanov, this would be a “poor gift to Putin because it will give him a hand in building this new totalitarianism and russification policy.”  

 

Despite the numerous threats to the Tatar language and identity, Gilfanov remains hopeful and optimistic, even at times upbeat. Rather than succumbing to the cynicism that might be expected, perhaps justifiably of journalists focusing on minority rights in Russia, Gilfanov, though never sugar-coating the reality of minority groups, remains positive, stressing the importance of taking opportunities to talk with people, particularly young people, about Tatarstan. At the end of our conversation, Gilfanov mentioned a trip he recently made to Florida Atlantic University to attend a seminar. Students who had never heard of Tatarstan were genuinely curious and asked what they could do to get more involved. “I didn’t expect that kind of interest from young people, students. . . I was touched, really.” He answers their queries in this way: “Just being interested in the politics and events in certain regions is the biggest contribution you can make.” 

Quit Your Day Job

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It’s no secret that she loves what she does. Jeanmarie Papelian, proud Armenian and Executive Director of Armenia Tree Project (ATP), brings great passion to the organization and is inspired each day to continue to help it flourish. Armenia Tree Project is a non-profit organization with a primary goal of reforesting the rapidly desertifying land of Armenia and promoting environmental education both in Armenia and the diaspora.

This has not always been her day job. Jeanmarie had always wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. She went to McGill University as an undergrad and right after that she attended law school at Suffolk University. During her time at law school in 1998, a horrible earthquake hit Armenia. This earthquake, coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Armenia’s subsequent independence, as well as the nation’s war with neighboring country Azerbaijan, made for a tragic time for the people of Armenia. Seeing the immense suffering the people of her homeland were facing, she began getting involved with volunteer work to provide humanitarian relief to Armenia.

She got involved with the Armenian Milk Fund, an organization with the goal of providing infant formula to those who could not afford milk due to widespread poverty and the collapsing dairy industry. Over the next 17 years she volunteered with this organization, serving as the chair and helping it grow rapidly and overseeing its absorption into the larger Armenian Missionary Association. Jeanmarie then began getting more involved with the larger organization and served as a member of the board. While committed to these humanitarian nonprofits on a volunteer basis, she was further developing in her law career, moving up to become partner of her firm. She was successful in her practice, but after 21 years at the same firm, she realized that she was having more fun doing her volunteer work than she was at her day job. A large part of her legal career involved handling divorce law. She was working with people at their worst and at a horrible time in their lives, and the job had become taxing. She was ready for a change.

Luckily, she decided at just the right time to make the leap from law to working for the organizations in which she had become so passionately involved. She had heard about Armenia Tree Project through a close friend of hers who was passionate about the organization. Her friend asked her to go visit some of the tree nursery sites on one of her other volunteer based trips to Armenia and report back. She was inspired by this organization, and though she did not get involved then, she continued to keep tabs on the project. When she was ready to make her move away from the harsh world of divorce law, she learned that the director of ATP was retiring, and she let the organization know she was interested. Now she is four years into her work as Executive Director of ATP and inspired everyday by the work she does.

ATP has brought much happiness to Jeanmarie’s life. “People love what we are doing…it brings people so much joy” she says, “even if you ask somebody for money and they say no that always say what you’re doing is so great and they wish they could help.” Her response to nearly every question I asked ended with a beautiful story about her time at ATP. She acknowledged that although fundraising constantly and managing international teams across time zones is taxing, the people she works with and the joy the organization brings to people never cease to inspire her.

One of the best aspects of working with ATP for Jeanmarie is speaking with the next generation of Armenian environmental stewards — the children. ATP works to promote environmental education starting at a young age, and believes that if the nation is to survive, the children of Armenia need to be better stewards of the environment than their parents and grandparents. This includes diasporan students, whom ATP works to bring into closer contact with their counterparts in the homeland. Jeanmarie laughingly recalled one of the annual trips the 5th graders from a local Armenian elementary school make to Armenian in which they spend one of their days planting trees with students at a school in Armenia. The students were amazingly engaged, she remembers. They loved communicating with each other– both groups practicing the other’s language while actively learning what they can do to help the environment of their homeland and fostering meaningful connections.

But these fun interactions with the next generations are not the only things that inspire Jeanmarie. Some of her most powerful stories involved the hardships the people of Armenian have faced and the ways in which ATP has been able to help in a profound way. She has found a deep level of support from members of the recent immigrant community who remember vividly the adversity they endured back in the homeland. After giving a speech about ATP to a local church, she was on her way out when the priest got back up in front. He told the community about how he remembers being a young boy in Armenia and cutting down the trees around his home and in the local park to heat his home and cook food because there was no other option. This story is sadly not a unique one. For years the catastrophic events plaguing the country led to a severe energy crisis which affected huge numbers of Armenians. There was no heat, no hot water, no light, and no way to get power, so for many, the only way to stay alive was to cut down all their trees. Jeanmarie made it clear how moved she is with each new story like this one, and how vital the work she does is.

ATP is much more than just a tree planting organization, and no one understands this better than Jeanmarie. She spoke about a branch of the organization called Backyard Nurseries, a program that provides tree seeds to members of rural villages. The villagers can plant the seeds and care for the trees, and once they reach a large enough size to be relocated, ATP buys them back, providing enough income for the villagers to be able to stay in their homes. ATP employs many people in communities across Armenia through this program as well as those who work in their nurseries and forests, providing vital source of income for many. This income allows men to stay home with their families rather than having to leave the country for work, allows for widows to afford to remain in their homes, and even employs refugees from neighboring countries, allowing them to build new lives.

Jeanmarie calls this “community revitalization” and considers it a vital part of ATP’s mission. More than just planting trees, ATP is turning a new leaf for the Armenian people, inspiring the next generation, bringing communities back together stronger than ever, and above all else, bringing joy.

 

On Idealism: An Interview with Stephen C. Bold

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Stephen C. Bold runs into Clapp Library with briefcase in hand, as though he were coming straight from a lecture on French literature. He wears a button-up shirt and looks off into the distance when he talks. Clearly prone to reflection, he recounts his career, childhood, and ideas on the importance of cultural exchange. If he became a professor of French literature at Boston College 30 years ago, it wasn’t on purpose. Driven by his idealism—resulting partly from the culture of the 1960s, the influence of his parents, and his own instincts—he was drawn into a lifelong pursuit of the humanities. He suspects his penchant for foreign language and culture originated early in his life, during his childhood in Germany and Holland, where he would interpret for his American parents. By the time he chose to pursue a Ph.D at New York University, it was only natural to immerse himself in Francophone studies, particularly in the works of Blaise Pascal.

For Professor Bold, Pascal is not merely an interesting writer and historical figure; he also sees in Pascal a reflection of his own desire to be broad and not to limit himself too much. Bold explains it this way: “Pascal was a kind of Renaissance man in a way. He wrote about religion—that’s what he’s most known for—but he was also an experimental scientist, and a mathematician, and a talented writer. I was in some ways attracted to that kind of broad base of the world”. This is the kind of idealism that motivates Bold—it is an open-arms approach to the world. He loves all the ways in which he can understand the great questions of the past, present, and future through his studies.

However, in all of Bold’s pursuit of breadth, he sees where his studies have been narrow. Over the years, he has encountered many different definitions of multiculturalism, and he concedes that if he wanted to be very multicultural, he missed the mark. He is very aware that his studies of Pascal focus on “a dead white European man”. This has stretched his cultural understanding, and he believes in the power of genuinely pursuing any culture other than one’s own. But when asked if he considers himself a cultural advocate, he only timidly says yes–he knows he has mostly focused on another Western, first-world country.

However, he still champions the idea of multiculturalism. He recalls returning from studying abroad in Montpellier and being asked by a friend if he was glad to be home. “I was glad to be home, but I was also glad to be away,” he replied. In his refusal to idealize his own culture and his appreciation of other norms and ways of living, Bold stands as an advocate for cultural exchange and appreciation.

As Bold continues to speak, multiculturalism again rises to the surface. After speaking of his trip to China, he immediately shares a lesson: “I strongly believe that we all need to see the way other people live and put ourselves in the position of not being at home all the time and of respecting the different ways of life and also the different assumptions and the different life experiences.” This conviction merges with many aspects of his life, including his parenting. He proudly states that his sons feel like they are “‘citizens of the world” and “have a broad outlook” due to their experience travelling and being biracial.

Bold himself calls this the best lesson of his life: to get out of one’s own head and experience in order to grow through listening to others and taking risks. Although he feels he hasn’t taken enough risks in a conventional sense, having followed the path that many have before him, he does feel that sharing ideas is putting oneself on the line. He has surely done that every day of his career as a professor.

As our conversation ends, Bold takes a risk and shares one last idea. He is concerned for the future of the world, particularly for social institutions. He is afraid that his idealism—that which has driven his whole life—is not shared by today’s society. Asking questions and being curious and not placing numbers and practicality over bigger issues–these values are not so common now among the younger generations and at institutions of learning, as language and literature programs are devalued. He hopes things will turn around, even if he does not find it a hopeful time. But he does have a dream: that we could all somehow find a family of nice people on the other side of the earth, spend a few weeks with them and find out as much about them as possible. If everyone could fall in love with a family from another culture, that would make the world a lot better.

Even as Professor Bold shares his concerns, his idealism persists. It seems to be a fundamental part of his character. When he speaks and stares off into the distance, he must be envisioning another world. In that world, he wouldn’t need to be a cultural advocate, because the exchange of ideas and traditions would be commonplace. And he could sit back and enjoy the family that he loves—both the one here and the one across the world.

Dr. Jane Orton: If Chinese Is Taught Well, We Can Learn It

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Dr. Jane Orton’s early foreign language instruction research centered on the “Silent Way” methodology, a theory that limits a teacher’s voice in the classroom. Fortunately, she does not apply this practice to her own life. As evidenced in our thirty-minute-turned-one-hour interview, one question can prompt Orton to share a myriad of thoughts, and it’s evident from her voice that Orton loves what she does.

While Orton claims to be retired and was thus unfazed by the overtime length of our interview, she is certainly far from unoccupied. When she answers my Skype call, I find she’s positioned in her living room with her laptop on her lap. The setting reminds me of my grandmother’s house, complete with a clock that chimes as I introduce myself. Orton is “delighted” to talk to anyone interested in Chinese, so we dive in.

Orton has dedicated her life to language instruction and education methodology research. Her skills as an educator, coupled with her personal history, have given her a unique perspective on the changes of Australia’s international engagement over the years. However, those skills would be meaningless without a fundamental love of learning. From the age of five, Orton kept a notebook to document every foreign word she encountered, and was “perfectly happy” learning French and German at school in a 1960s Australia where “Europe was the thing”. She went on to receive a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne with major studies in French and Philosophy and minor studies in German and Politics, but when cost limited her ability to travel to Europe, she embarked on a trip to Asia instead. She lights up as she discusses her love for Hong Kong, and it’s clear these early experiences significantly shaped the trajectory of her life.

Her first true encounter with learning Chinese came when she was working on the “Silent Way” in New York. As a guinea pig for that teaching method, she undertook an intensive Chinese course, which spurred a life-long dedication to the language. She returned to Australia to complete a four-year Honours degree from the University of Melbourne in Chinese Language and Literature, “the only way you could do it back then”. Orton then moved to Taiwan to further her studies, and later to Beijing to teach at the Beijing Teacher’s College (now Capital Normal University). After attending classes in psychology and the pedagogy of teaching alongside her own students, she returned to Melbourne to complete a PhD in Education at La Trobe University.

It’s certainly curious that Orton’s primary focus is on Chinese when she’s not Chinese herself, though being an outsider has given her a different perspective on the challenges of Chinese language instruction. Her background in languages shaped her interest in the actual process of language learning when she undertook Chinese for the first time, because it was “so different”. Similarly, her experience as an English Second Language (ESL) teacher, in France and in Australia, have educated her on the limitations of the native-speaker as an instructor, as “her students in France could have told her”. In Chinese, she explains that only a non-native speaker can understand the nuances of adopting a tonal language, something that is often overlooked in Chinese instruction. She believes that there is room for non-native speakers to advocate for cultures that are not their own, as she herself does everyday.

Orton is kind and eager to share her expertise with me, treating me as an equal with constant references to things she’s “sure I already know”. But she’s also firm. She prefaces our interview with a laugh, saying that she “can’t imagine” I’ll ask her anything she won’t want to answer, and she openly admits to getting herself into “hot water” when advocating for the importance of Chinese instruction in Australia. She explains that language instruction in Australia still comes from a very “white, male, Christian-backed” perspective, and her age has allowed her to see the impact of various government administrations on the resources allocated to Chinese programs. Yet, she’s adamant that her push for Chinese proficiency in Australia does not come from her personal “love” of Chinese culture; instead it arises from a purely strategic, political perspective. “When I pick up my newspaper, it’s not full of Italy, it’s not full of Germany, it’s full of China.”

While Orton has always been one to jump at the chance to take a class, to study a new topic or to learn a new subject, she doesn’t downplay the difficulty of learning Chinese. In addition to the lack of resources dedicated to Chinese study, the insufficient government backing of programs and scarcity of effective teachers and curriculum mean that Chinese is expensive and time-consuming to learn. It takes three-and-a-half times longer to learn Chinese than to learn another foreign language, and yet the same school time is allocated to Chinese as it is to French and Indonesian. While the outlook on Chinese instruction in Australia may seem bleak, Orton’s current projects are a source of optimism.  She currently consults a primary school whose students take classes in Chinese alongside their normal curriculum, and despite the obstacles, there is much in the program that brings her joy. Orton believes Chinese is not a lost cause in Australia: if it’s taught correctly, we can learn it.

That being said, Orton believes there is more to gain from learning a language than simply achieving fluency. In her current project, she sees children conquering the puzzles of learning different languages. “Why are there two words for brother in Chinese? Because age is the most significant social divider is all of Chinese society.” A child learns that in week two. You don’t necessarily “learn the violin to become a violinist”; similarly, by learning a language, especially one so different from English, you’ll learn much about culture and society in addition to mastering the code.

As for her retirement? From publishing new articles to hosting symposiums, it’s clear Orton won’t give up her passion for a while yet, and I’m grateful that she had an hour to set aside to talk to me. She still travels, though less frequently than she would like, and while it’s been her New Year’s Resolution to be even more disciplined in maintaining her Chinese, Chinese is still “a part of my week, every week”.

The Inspirational Chuck Johnson

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It’s always been an uphill battle. That’s the way it’s supposed to be though. If it’s easy, it means you aren’t challenging yourself enough.

Chuck Johnson is an international action film actor based in Tokyo, Japan. A native of Michigan, when he began training in Olympic Taekwondo at the age of 15 he would never have imagined where he was going to end up! In just 2 ½ years Chuck earned his black belt; 6 days later he was named Michigan State Junior Olympic Taekwondo champion in both sparring and forms. He went on to study the sport in its native Korea, while he attended Yonsei University, under the tutelage of a former Korean national champion. During this time, he also competed overseas in Tokyo and Hong Kong. In 2001, while completing a course at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, he became the Inter-collegiate Taekwondo champion of Hong Kong even though he had originally come to the tournament just to watch.

During trips back to the U.S., Chuck also won the KTAA National Championship for sparring and forms and was a gold medalist at the State Games of America.

Inspired by a friend from Korea, moving to Japan was originally intended to be temporary—a gap year between college and the ‘real world’. After Chuck moved to Tokyo he worked an assortment of interesting jobs, including the standard work often taken on by expat Americans: teaching English. More unusual jobs followed: thanks to his physique, skill, and facility with English and Korean he was soon working as a bodyguard for visiting international celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone, Orlando Bloom, Jackie Chan, and Kim Sun Hee. However, the craziest job he says he had was work as a stripper.

I was doing fight choreography training during the day, so I needed a job that I could do at night; so that led me to that. Part of my work involved drinking with clients and customers though, so it was pretty tough. When I went to training, half or more of the time I was going hungover.

One of Japan’s first foreign stuntmen and today a film industry veteran of 15 years, Chuck started out on his action career in 2004 when his martial arts skill led him to be cast in Godzilla: Final Wars. The moment he walked onto the set, he knew that was what he wanted to do. It wasn’t easy though! At the time, he couldn’t speak a word of Japanese. Still, while he was on set he was able to meet the Japanese action director Yuji Shimomura (Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid V) and soon after began his study of East Asian-style fighting choreography. The first African American to make an international name for himself in the Far East’s action film industry, he is also the first American to have been trained extensively in the art of Katana Tate (Japanese theatrical swordplay).

It has been an uphill battle with an assortment of highs and lows, but Chuck Johnson is the sort of man who knows how to face those challenges with humor and firm determination. Good-natured and quick to laugh, this father says his biggest advice for people is to remember:

Life is really, really going to test you. Know that. Own it. Push through it.

Chuck has over 25 years of martial arts experience. In addition to holding the rank of master in Olympic Taekwondo, Chuck is ranked in Capoeira, Karate, Kobudo, and Judo. Additionally, he has studied Wing Chun Kung Fu, Hapkido, Hanmudo, Krav Maga, boxing, Kickboxing, and Tai Chi. He is also the chief developer of Phat English, a system which uses hip-hop music to teach the subtle nuances of English pronunciation, a prize-winning writer, and founder of the Tokyo-based company Quiet Flame Productions. He also runs the Quiet Flame Stunt Team, Asia’s first all-English speaking multi-ethnic stunt team.

Chuck has appeared in over 50 dramas, films, commercials, and video games in Asia and the United States. In 2012, he even became the face of Village Vanguard’s Gachi Muchi brand curry. In addition to his native English, Chuck speaks, reads, and writes Chinese and Korean, languages in which he’s self-taught.

 

 

 

 

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Roland Pellenq Wants You to Know That Concrete Isn’t Cement (and Vice Versa)

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Roland Pellenq’s office is both tidy and cluttered. It’s built around the centerpiece of a stack of papers and manilla  folders that sits one foot high on a corner of his desk, right next to his Mac desktop. On the windowsill is a variety of interesting trinkets—a mug, an hourglass filled with black sand, a replica of what looks to be a fanciful tower of some kind—and opposite the small, round table I sit at is a wall of books. The organized chaos reminds me of someone who makes a mess when working and then cleans up before they leave, enacting the process so consistently and repetitively that they end up with a perfectly efficient system.

On paper, Dr. Pellenq is an accomplished academic. Beyond a Master of Science from Marseilles in France and a doctorate from London, he is the director of the CNRS branch at MIT—a joint lab effort that links MIT to Marseilles, where they study complex porous materials. He’s also one of the founders and leading researchers at MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub (“Not cement,” he interjects quickly ), but he assures you right away  that he isn’t the only one, and he’s  happy to talk about the people who work for him or who have helped him in his career. He’s published several papers over the years, some under the auspices of industry giants like Shell, and, although modest, he enjoys pointing out how his research has led him to meet some of the top leaders in the gas and cement industry.

Such is  the man who greets me outside of his office. I had knocked on his door and hadn’t gotten an answer, but Pellenq emerged minutes later from the office just next door to his, apologizing for not realizing I was there. He’s dressed in jeans and a gray sweater,  with a blue scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, and he balances the hanger holding his suit jacket on  bookshelf before he ushers me to a seat.

“The reason I’m here is kind of random,” he tells me with a laugh as he eases into his office chair. He pauses to consider this. Then:  “Well, not random. What happened is that I work for CNRS. Do you know what that is?”

As happens with most of the questions he asks me, Pellenq gives me no chance to respond before launching into an answer: CNRS is the largest governmental research agency in France—“probably the biggest one, actually,” Pellenq adds—and he is one of its most productive members. (In fact he was Director of Research there from 2002 to 2007.) It’s clear that this is a man who loves his work and loves explaining to others what he does, and it takes very little prodding for him to jump on a new story or explain another process. I barely even ask how he ended up at MIT before he launches into the tale of working with a fellow MIT civil engineering professor, Franz-Josef Ulm, when he first arrived in the States.

“We were still smokers back then,” he says with a laugh, as if that has everything to do with the story. He tells me how the CNRS approved his visit to the US and sent him on his way, and how he bridged the gap between MIT and CNRS to create a joint lab. I press him for details, and it’s hard to hold back a laugh at his earnestness when he says, “I sent a text message congratulating Alain for the new job, blah blah blah blah. And then I say, ‘What, by the way, why don’t you come to MIT,’ and he said, ‘Yes, okay, alright, okay,’”—as though texting Alain Fuchs, then acting president of CNRS, was no big deal.

But for Pellenq, it isn’t a big deal.  His relationship with his home country and the people there is one of fondness and familiarity, though after eleven years of living here he’s very comfortable with his situation in the United States. Perhaps a little too comfortable, even—at one point he says excitedly, “What we have,” only to stop and correct himself by saying, “Or rather, what you have,” before going on to explain that while at MIT he has plentiful resources, it’s in Marseilles where some of the really snazzy tech work  like three-dimensional imaging takes place.

Pellenq’s openness isn’t limited to the candor with which he speaks of his own work and life. At the end of the interview, he pelts me with questions about my interests and majors and plans for the summer, suggesting several places that I might find good to work at and encouraging me to apply. I laugh and thank him as I leave his office.  Then I recall that we hadn’t shaken hands or even introduced ourselves.  He had simply checked that I was who I said I was before he settled in to speak. Clearly, the niceties of formal introductions are, for him, unnecessary.

Shima Khan: Advocating for other cultures in the classroom

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For Wellesley High School (WHS) English teacher Shima Khan, teaching English is about more than just assigning essays and quizzing students on vocabulary. It’s about helping students understand the power of the human experience and exposing them to narratives of those who come from other backgrounds.

Originally from Hyderabad, India, Khan explains that she hadn’t always intended to become an English teacher. “Within the immigrant community, there’s this idea that you go into a field that gives you immediate returns. My parents were encouraging me to go into the sciences,” she says. However, after her freshman year of college at University of California – Irvine, Khan decided she couldn’t stand the “vapid lectures” of her physics classes. To her, the sciences were so constrictive because there was always only one right answer. “There was too little conversation and critical thinking happening for my taste,” she says bluntly, “and I changed my major from physics to English.”

After getting her teaching degree, Khan worked in an inner-city school in Houston, Texas, teaching students who were primarily from diverse, low-income backgrounds. She found this experience highly rewarding because she felt that the students valued her care and appreciated her reliable presence in their lives. When she came to WHS in 2012, Khan discovered it was a stark contrast from the school district she worked at in Houston. WHS was composed of an affluent, predominantly white student body and a mostly-white faculty as well.

Khan’s first year was difficult, to say the least. “Everyone here is white and privileged. They have the resources they need to get what they want. I didn’t feel that there was a need for me as a teacher,” she recalls. However, she soon learned that the students at WHS did need her; just in a way that was different from what she’d experienced in Houston.

During Khan’s first year at WHS, she realized there was a void in the units taught in English classes. Most courses didn’t incorporate multicultural literature and very few authors of color were included on course syllabi. These voices played an important role in the social fabric of the American experience, and Khan felt the students needed to be exposed to them. “Reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is just as important as reading The Great Gatsby,” she says. “That is also an American experience.” To address this gap in representation, Khan co-created the senior English course “Diverse American Voices,” co-taught by a white teacher and a teacher of color. Their course documents the experiences of minorities living in America and features books ranging from Eddie Huang’s Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir to Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

Khan also created the elective course “World Literature,” which promotes other cultures through literature and features classics from Egypt and India to indigenous populations in North America. Each year, Khan changes the curriculum to reflect the cultural identities of students who are taking the class. “Whoever is taking the course, I want to make sure that their identity is represented. To hear your peers talk about your identity with you is very powerful,” she says.

Khan appreciates that teaching English, as opposed to another subject, has offered her the space to advocate for other cultures and accommodate the whole student. “Humanities classes give you the space to think differently [from STEM courses]. It also gives me, as a teacher, the space to appreciate what students are bringing into the classroom,” she says. “If you take [my] classes, I hope it instills a love for appreciating other cultures without appropriating them.”

Khan doesn’t just advocate for other cultures through literature; she also recognizes the need to increase teacher diversity, a matter that is particularly relevant given WHS’s lack of diverse students and faculty. Khan was recently quoted in the school’s newspaper, where she explained that the gap in cultural representation among teachers is just as much a loss for white students as it is for those of color. “Being in the presence of someone who looks different helps [white students] realize that the world is not a reflection of who they are,” she stated. “There are different people and you have to know not just how to tolerate them but to make meaningful connections with them; to celebrate their individuality.”