"Outside the classroom, I was able to practice what I was studying in real time. Learning small phrases in French just to get through the grocery store taught me what it takes to hold onto a language or to gain a new one."
This past June, I traveled to Paris! The trip was made possible by the Global Learning Scholarship, which covered a significant part of my flight and program fees. That support let me take two courses that speak to two sides of my life, the linguist in me and the person who has always been drawn to fashion.
I took two Global Core courses: “Endangered Languages in Global Cities" and “France and the African Diaspora.” I speak Igbo fluently, a Nigerian language UNESCO considers endangered. I learned it because my parents made it a priority to pass it down. I have never met another child of the diaspora who speaks it as fluently as I do. This is why I wanted to dig into why languages disappear. I explored how diasporic communities, like Little Senegal in New York, can become spaces for preserving a mother tongue. I also thought about what gets left behind when people build new lives far from home.
Outside the classroom, I was able to practice what I was studying in real time. Learning small phrases in French just to get through the grocery store taught me what it takes to hold onto a language or to gain a new one. I also spent a lot of time immersing myself in the city as a fashion capital. I went to fashion museums to learn how the French relate to fashion. These observations became the focal point of my final project in “Endangered Languages and Global Cities," where I argued that fashion functions as its own language. I wrote about how fashion has the same power dynamics and structures I had learned about in the course. Furthermore, I argued that fashion carries its own kind of linguistic power. A garment name can be whitewashed into a generic name or can intentionally maintain the cultural name it came from.
Being in Paris confirmed for me that I want a career that combines fashion and culture on a global scale. That excitement is bringing me back to Paris this fall for a semester exchange at Sciences Po, where I plan to keep asking these questions. I am deeply grateful to the GLS donors for making this first program possible! I look forward to continuing this journey and nurturing my curious spirit.
