Contributori
Sophie Pu 蒲心韵 ’20 is a recent graduate of Amherst College with a double-major in Film & Media Studies and Statistics. Born and raised in Shanghai, China, she grew up speaking Mandarin Chinese in school and Shanghai dialect at home. She started learning English in kindergarten, German in middle school, and French in college. By traveling across different continents and living in different countries, Sophie hopes to become a gatherer of different cultures and languages.
Isabelle Doerre Torres ’22 I grew up surrounded by multiple languages- my father is from Germany and my mother is from Colombia. I attended German Saturday School as well as a German international school for two years and spent most summers of my childhood in Germany. More recently my family began to frequently visit Colombia, and I began learning Spanish formally in school starting in the 8th grade. at Amherst College I study Latinx and Latin American Studies.
Eniola Ajao ’21 is a senior majoring in English and Computer Science. She was born in Nigeria but has lived all over the world. Her linguistic interests include American Sign Language, French, and Yoruba.
Lucas Ambrosio I’m a Spanish Teaching Assistant at Amherst College. In Argentina, I work teaching English as a foreign language at elementary and high schools, and I work as a freelance translator for companies as well.
Waleed Babar ’21 Assalam-u-Alaikum! Having lived in Islamabad, Pakistan for 18 years, I grew up multilingual, speaking English, Urdu and Pushto fluently. I hope to bring the unique identities of each of these languages at Amherst!
السلام علیکم! میں ولید بابر، کلاس آف 2021، ہوں۔ اسلام آباد، پاکستان میں 18 سال گزارنے کی وجہ سے میں انگریزی، اردو، اور پشتو بول سکتا ہوں۔ میں چاہتا ہوں کہ ان زبانوں کی منفرد شناخت کو ایمھرسٹ میں دکھانا !
Saad Baloch ’20 I’m a sophomore at Amherst, majoring in Econ. Besides English, Urdu and Arabic, I am familiar with Korean and am fluent in a number of regional South-Asian languages including Hindi, Saraiki and Punjabi.
میرا امحیرسٹ کالج میں دوسرا سال ہے اور میں معاشیات کی تعلیم حاصل کر رہا ہوں . انگریزی ، اُرْدُو اور عربی کے علاوہ میں کورین زبان سے بھی واقف ہوں اور جنوبی ایشیاء کی ریجنل زبانیں جیسے ہندی ، سرائیکی اور پنجابی بھی بول لیتا ہوں .
Daniel Betancur-Echeverri ’19 I was born in Boston in 1996 to two recent Colombian immigrants. Ever since I was a child, I remember my parents lamenting the fact that so many of their close friends were purposefully neglecting to teach their children about their culture and about their language in order to “Americanize” them. So, my parents did the opposite, reading all the fairy tales other children heard, but in Spanish. And sitting me for hours on end (when you’re 5, minutes feel like hours so it was probably more like 30 minutes) writing Spanish exercises. At the time, I hated all the extra work; my friends only had to learn one language, but I had to learn twice that. Now, though, I greatly appreciate their effort to constantly keep me connected to our rich culture. Without a doubt, it’s made me into the person I am today.
Nací en Boston en el 1996 de dos inmigrantes colombianos recientes. Desde que era niño, recuerdo que mis padres lamentaban el hecho de que muchos de sus amigos cercanos descuidaran a propósito enseñar a sus hijos sobre su cultura y su idioma para “americanizarlos”. Entonces, mis padres hicieron lo contrario, leyendo todos los cuentos de hadas que otros niños escucharon, pero en español. Y sentarme por horas y horas (cuando tienes 5, los minutos parecen horas, así que probablemente fueron más como 30 minutos) escribiendo ejercicios en español. En ese momento, odiaba todo el trabajo extra; mis amigos solo tenían que aprender un idioma, pero yo tenía que aprender el doble. Ahora, sin embargo, aprecio mucho sus esfuerzos por mantenerme constantemente conectado con nuestra rica cultura. Sin dudas, me ha hecho la persona que soy hoy.
Youssef Boucetta ’21 I am a senior transfer international student at Amherst College, completing an interdisciplinary major in French, Spanish and English (Comparative Literature). Before coming to western Mass. I’ve lived in Chile, Spain, and Morocco and I was educated in French schools all throughout. This culturally plural childhood has greatly shaped my academic interests and who I am today. As a result of it, I am fluent in Spanish, English, French and Moroccan Darija, and I’ve been learning Italian since my freshman year.
Gabriela Bucio ‘ 21 Living up in the southwest with constant visits to Mexico, I grew up in a bilingual culture that was never properly defined as predominantly English nor Spanish. Living between two cultures and their linguistic differences is part of the reason I chose to major in History at Amherst.
Vivir en el suroeste con frecuentes visitas a Mexico significó para mí crecer en un cultura bilingüe, la cual nunca fue explícitamente definida por la dominancia del ingles ni del español. El vivir entre dos culturas y sus diferencias lingüísticas fue parte de la razón por la que elegí especializarme en Historia en Amherst.
Min Cheng, Bilingual Counselor Min Cheng received her B. A. in English from Shanghai University, her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Central Florida, and her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. After completing her pre-doctoral internship at Mt. Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, she started working at the Amherst College Counseling Center as a bilingual Chinese/English counselor. She worked in various fields before her psychology career, including adult English education, business interpretation, and translation. In therapy, she is primarily psychodynamic in her theoretical orientation, with an emphasis on multicultural counseling and social justice issues.
程敏，上海大学英语系学士，中佛罗里达大学临床心理学硕士，哥伦比亚大学教育学院咨询心理学博士。她在纽约市的 Mount Sinai Beth Israel 医疗中心完成她的博士前实习后，开始在阿默斯特学院心理咨询中心担任中英双语心理咨询师。在进入心理行业之前，她有过许多不同领域的工作经验，包括成人英语教育、商务口译、翻译等。在心理治疗中，她的主要理论取向是心理动力学，尤其注重多文化咨询和社会正义问题。
Ho Yean Choi ’19 Born and raised in Korea, coming to Amherst College was my first time living my life in English. It is still much easier for me to like myself when I speak/live in Korean.
최호연 (class of 2019): 한국에서 나고 자랐다. 영어로 일상을 살아가기 시작한 건 애머스트에 오고 나서부터였다. 아직도 한국어로 말하고 생활할 때의 내 모습이 더 좋다.
Faith Chung ’18 is a senior Economics major hailing from Poughkeepsie, NY. Born in Singapore to Korean American parents and raised in the US, Faith has a deep interest in the intersections of language, culture, and experience. Though no longer fluent in Korean, she is now fluent in Spanish and enjoyed a semester abroad in Granada, Spain.
Rodrigo Aguilera Croasdaile, ‘23, es un estudiante de Amherst College y escritor en inglés y español. Nacido hispanohablante pero educado bilingüe, ahora escribe traducciones, poesía, y cuentos en ambos idiomas.
Rodrigo Aguilera-Croasdaile, ‘23, is an Amherst College student and writer in English and Spanish. Born speaking Spanish but educated bilingually, he now writes translations, poetry, and short stories in both languages.
Diana Daniels ‘21 I am from the San Francisco Bay Area in California and I will be majoring in Political Science. My main interests are foreign languages, law, politics and music. I started learning Spanish in middle school, Italian in high school, and started German in college. I love languages and hope to learn as many as possible at a deep level and use them in future places of work. Next, I would like to learn French, Norwegian, Portuguese or Arabic.
Monica Elise Diaz ’20 I live in a Spanish-speaking household of Cuban, Argentine, and Puerto Rican heritage, so the Spanish language has always been an integral part of my cultural identity and personal life.
Vivo en una casa de habla hispana de herencia cubana, argentina y puertorriqueña, pues por eso el español siempre ha sido una parte integral de mi identidad cultural y vida personal.
Helen Feibes ’23 I’m currently a sophomore majoring in Neuroscience and hailing from Lexington, KY. Growing up within a Spanish immersion school program and learning about my family’s German history, I’ve always been interested in languages. Translating poetry has become a way to connect with languages, even those I don’t know well, and deepen my understanding of them and even grow more as a writer in English. I hope to continue translating and fostering my language-learning skills.
Aqiil Gopee ’20 I am a sophomore, majoring in Religion and History. I am from Mauritius, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean containing a confluence of languages inherited from a past full of intercontinental exchanges and dynamisms. I like to think of it as a land of shipwreck where African, Asian and European tongues have landed, generating the syncretic dialect now known as Mauritian Creole. I enjoy creative writing, photography and have two pet insects, a scarab and a praying mantis.
Je suis en deuxième année et étudie la religion et l’histoire. Je suis de l’île Maurice, une petite île dans l’océan indien qui contient une confluence de langues héritées d’un passé d’échanges et de dynamismes intercontinentaux. J’y pense souvent comme une terre de naufrage où des langues africaines, asiatiques et européennes ont échoué, faisant surgir un dialecte syncrétique connu aujourd’hui comme créole mauricien. J’aime l’écriture, la photographie, et ai deux insectes de compagnie, un scarabée et une mante religieuse.
Malyaka Imran ’22 I am a first-year student at Amherst College. Besides Urdu and English, I can speak Hindi and Punjabi. Translating for Confluences is my way of reconnecting with Urdu, while also sharing its beauty with the readers of the magazine.
یہ میرا ایمرسٹ کالج میں پہلا سال ہے۔ اردو اور انگریزی زبان کے ساتھ ساتھ، مجھے ہندی اور پنجابی زبانوں سے بھی واقفیت حاصل ہے۔ کونفلونس کے لیے ترجمہ کرکے مجھے اردو زبان کے ساتھ جڑے رہنے اور اس کی خوبصورتی کو بانٹنے کا موقع ملتا ہے۔
Alice Jackson ’20 is a freshman, majoring in French and Russian at Amherst College, having moved to the U.S. in 2017. She’s excited about her summer project, working with photo negatives in Archives and Special Collections. She firmly believes that books are the closest thing to magic that we can have.
Alice Jackson est une étudiante dans sa première année en étudiant le Français et la Russe a Amherst College, et a déménagé aux Etats-Unis en 2017. Elle attend avec impatience son boulot l’été dans lequel elle va travailler avec les négatifs photographiques dans les archives de la bibliothèque. Elle croit sans aucun doute que les livres sont les choses le plus proche aux objets magiques, que nous pouvons avoir.
Juanita Jaramillo ’22 Born in the U.S to Colombian immigrants, I learned Spanish at home and English at school. I moved to Colombia for 2.5 years, during which I refined my Spanish and learned to read and write academically. Since my return to the US 8 years ago, I have tried to further develop and maintain my bilingualism.
Lianbi Ji ’21 is an English and Mathematics double major at Amherst College. She was born in Suzhou, China and spent her high school years in Wales, UK and Pune, India. She is a native Mandarin Chinese speaker and a fluent English speaker. She also speaks conversational Spanish and Hindi. Having been exposed to diverse cultures and linguistic styles since the age of 16, she developed a keen perceptiveness and strong interest in multi-lingual phenomena and literary translation.
计连碧(21′)在美国阿默斯特学院就读英语与数学双专业。她出生在江苏苏州，之后在威尔士和印度普纳完成了她的高中学业。她的母语是中文，同时也流利掌握英语。她还能够使用西班牙语和印地语进行日常对话。她自16岁起就不断接触多元文化和多元语言习俗的她，对多语言现象和文学翻译有着敏锐的感知力和强烈的兴趣。
Harith Khawaja ’20 Hi! I’m Harith, class of 2019 and I study Computer Science and Philosophy. I was born in Sharjah, UAE and then moved to Lahore, Pakistan when I was very little where I spent the next 18 years of my life. I grew up speaking Urdu, English and Punjabi, and I also have a C2 (conversational) fluency in French courtesy of having studied it for several years and studying abroad last Fall. Four languages are hard to juggle, especially when you accidentally begin talking to your mother in French! But it is always fun to explore dramatically different forms of expression in different languages – something that I have tried to present with my written and translation work for Confluences.
Yejin Ko ’19 Hi, my name is Yejin Ko, a current junior from Amherst College majoring in Economics and Mathematics. As an international student, I grew up in Seoul, South Korea and was excited to participate in this magazine by translating articles into Korean. I hope everyone enjoys the writings in Korean!
안녕하세요 현재 애머스트 대학교 3학년인 고예진입니다. 저는 경제와 수학을 복수전공 하고 있는 학생입니다. 국제학생으로서 저는 애머스트로 오기전에 서울에서 자랐습니다. 그래서 저는 이 잡지 번역가로서 참여를 하고 싶었고 돕고 싶었습니다. 여러분들이 한국어로 번역된 글을 재미있게 읽었으면 바랍니다. 감사합니다.
Hapshiba Kwon ’20 presumes her first word was 엄마, Korean for “mom,” but she hesitates to call English her second language; it’s become her go-to, while Korean remains a muscle lesser-used. Sometimes she thinks in Japanese, with what relevant vocabulary she remembers from high school.
Konstantin Larin ’21 grew up in Volgograd, Russia, but spent his high school years in the US, where he ended up learning Spanish. Although majoring in Statistics, his life experiences have made him appreciate the complexities of different languages. He hopes to continue learning more about how languages influence the way we think and what it means to be a native or a fluent speaker.
Eugene Lee ’16 I’m a recent graduate whose interest in language and diffusion of cultures began during my senior year, when I took both Transnational Shakespeares with Professor Bosman, and introductory Latin and French. This interest only deepened in the following two years, during which I taught English in South Korea. Today, I work on Disoriented, a blog project centered on Asia and identity, and occasionally contribute to Neocha, an arts and culture magazine based in Shanghai. I hope to be an open resource, so please feel free to reach out. I’m extremely excited and inspired by the work the contributors and staff are putting in, and look forward to watching this project grow!
Emily Merriman is a Writing Associate and the Advisor for Multilingual Students in the Writing Center at Amherst College. She is available to provide writing and editorial support for Confluences: Lost & Found in Translation. Emily once spoke fluent French, as well as a few dialects of English. She has some familiarity with several other languages and is particularly trying to develop her spoken Mandarin Chinese.
Anthony Vicente Ornelaz ’21(E) I am a senior at Amherst College, and I am majoring in History and Sexuality, Women, & Gender Studies. Originally, I am from a small town in Southern California named Wasco, where my parents grew up. From there, I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and spent eight years serving as a Security Forces member. I find that most of my interests, academic and not, center on the places I served and the cultures I was privileged to be immersed in. I love writing poetry and working on the complicated art that is translation. So, enjoy my work and the work of all the other translators.
Amy Pass ’20 I grew up in a bilingual household, speaking Spanish and English. The beauties and complexities of language have always fascinated me, pushing me to aspire to learn French and Portuguese as well.
Crecí en una casa bilingüe, hablando el español y el inglés. Las hermosuras y complejidades de la lengua siempre me han fascinado, motivándome a aspirar a aprender el francés y el portugués también.
Lydia Peterson is a Writing Associate at the Amherst College Writing Center. She has studied a few languages in the past (Spanish, Italian, German) and has created English translations of texts from both Old English and Medieval Latin. She is happy to support the more modern efforts at Confluences: Lost & Found in Translation.
Amanda Pizzollo (Manda) grew up working on a peach farm in South Carolina, became a nurse after attending Clemson University, spent nine years as a travel nurse, and then made a career change – completing her Masters in Library and Information Science in 2017. Since then she’s been the Bicentennial Project Metadata Librarian in Frost Library, getting to describe materials from Archives & Special Collections that are digitized and made available at acdc.amherst.edu. From times spent with her bilingual friends in her hometown, to studying abroad in Spain in undergard, to learning from curanderas and promotoras de salud in Oaxaca, and to currently re-dedicating herself to improving her Spanish – travel and expression through language have been foundational to her values and perspective.
Mikayla Vieira Ribeiro ’18 is a senior at Amherst College majoring in Black Studies and English. She is from Curaçao and of Portuguese descent.
Mikayla Vieira Ribeiro ’18 ta den su ultimo aña na Amherst College, i e ta enfoka riba Inglés ku estudios Afrodesendientes. E ta Yui di Korsou ku desendensia Portugués.
Aleksandar Ristivojevic ’22
I’m a first-year international student from Serbia, planning to major in mathematics. I am fluent in Serbian and English and I also speak some German. I hope to promote multilingualism at Amherst by translating this magazine to my native language and at the same time improve my knowledge of both languages.
Зовем се Александар Ристивојевић, из Србије сам, и студент сам прве године. Планирам да студирам математику. Течно говорим српски и енглески и знам помало немачког. Надам се да ћу превођењем овог часописа на свој матерњи језик промовисати вишејезичност на Амхерсту и у исто време унапредити своје знање оба језика.
Ari Robinson ’22 I am a junior sport management major at UMass. I have always had a love for poetry, and my love for translation took off last year. Growing up in Dallas and going to a modern orthodox Jewish day school, I became familiar with Biblical Hebrew, Talmudic Hebrew, and Aramaic. Upon my gap year in Israel, I discovered my love for modern Hebrew.
אני בשנה שלוש ב”יו-מס”, ואני לומד הנהלה של ספורט. תמיד אהבתי שירה, וגיליתי תרגום בשנה שעברה. נולדתי בדאלס, ובבית ספר עבדתי עים עיברת של תורה, עיברת של מישנה, וגם ארמית. בשנת חופש, הבנתי שאני אוהב עיברת מודרנית.
Benigno Sánchez-Eppler is a Lecturer at Amherst College and the Founding Co-editor and Translator at RaicesCuaqueras.org.
Álex Filipe Santos ‘19 is a Mathematics and Computer Science major hailing from Natal, Brazil. Having learned English through middle and high school in Brazil and being the only English-speaking person of his family, Álex is a native Portuguese speaker, who also spent 2017 immersing himself in German language and culture as a visiting student at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
Álex Filipe Santos estuda Matemática e Ciência da Computação em Amherst College. Nascido em Natal (RN, Brasil), aprendeu inglês durante o ensino fundamental e médio no Brasil e é o único falante de inglês de sua família. Álex é falante nativo do português, e também passou 2017 imerso em cultura e língua alemã como aluno visitante na Universidade de Göttingen, Alemanha.
Clara Seo ‘21 I am a Chemistry and Statistics major at Amherst. I was born in Gumi, South Korea, spent my childhood in Singapore, sojourned in Dresden, Germany for a brief 14 months in middle school, and finally settled down in Albany, New York. I am fully Korean, raised by two parents who before relocating to Singapore never left Korea. I was an ESL student all throughout elementary school. Despite learning a whole new foreign language at school, I was only allowed to speak Korean at home. Even with my two younger siblings, we bickered in English out in public but quarreled exclusively in Korean at home. Looking back, I now greatly appreciate my father’s assertiveness to pass down and preserve the Korean language for me.
안녕하세요, 저는 애머스트 대학교 2021년 졸업반에서 화학과 통계를 복수전공 하고 있는 서채영이라고 합니다. 저는 한국의 구미에서 태어난 후, 어린시절은 싱가폴, 중학생 시절 14개월 정도는 독일 드레스덴에서 보냈고, 마지막으로 지금 거주하고 있는 뉴욕 알바니에 오게 되었습니다. 저의 부모님은 싱가폴로 이주하기 전까지 한국을 한번도 떠나본 적 없는 분들이셨고, 그런 부모님 밑에서 자란 저는 완전한 한국인입니다. 초등학교 내내 저는 ESL 학생이었습니다. 학교에서는 완전히 새로운 외국어를 배우고 있었음에도 불구하고, 집에서는 오직 한국어만을 사용할 수 있었습니다. 남동생과 여동생과도 밖에서는 영어로 투닥거리다가도 집에서는 오로지 한국어만을 사용해 투닥거리곤 했습니다. 되돌아보면 저희에게 한국어를 물려주겠다는 아버지의 결심에 깊이 감사합니다.
Esther Song ’21 I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, where I attended an international school for six years before coming to Amherst. I am trilingual; my mother tongue is Korean, my second language English, and my third language Chinese. I love writing in both Korean and English and have a passion for languages in general. Although my major is yet undecided, I am interested in English, Math, and Asian languages and civilization studies.
안녕하세요, 저는 애머스트의 2021년 졸업반 송유진이라고 합니다. 저는 한국의 서울에서 태어나고 자랐으며 중학교, 고등학교 시절 6년 동안 한국의 한 국제학교에 재학한 후 지난 2017년 애머스트로 오게 되었습니다. 저는 3개 국어를 구사하는데, 모국어로 한국어를, 제2언어로 영어를, 그리고 제3언어로 중국어를 사용하고 있습니다. 저는 한글과 영어 두 가지 언어 모두로 글을 쓰는 것을 좋아하고 여러가지 언어를 배우는데 흥미를 가지고 있습니다. 아직 전공은 미정이지만 영문학, 수학, 그리고 동양 언어와 문명학에 관심을 가지고 있습니다.
Ellie (Uyen) Thieu ’19 translated from English into Vietnamese while she was a junior Amherst College.
Bao Tran Tran ’18 Tran prides herself on being a Vietnamese, a Sociology major, a traveler and explorer. While she still sometimes feels foreign to both English and Vietnamese as a means of self-expression, she hopes to venture more into multilingual creative writing spaces to reconstruct her sense of self, share her stories and connect with other voices.
Hikari Yoshida ’19 I am Hikari Yoshida, a Japanese, and have spent most of my life in Kobe, Japan. I am an English Major at Amherst College. My first time learning English was when I moved to Hong Kong when I was 6. I went to an international school and came back to Japan when I was 10, where I kept up my English ability with once a week tutor class until I came to study in Amherst. I think the ability to have two different languages is a special gift for me because I can enjoy one story from completely different perspectives!
Hyery Yoo ’22 I was born in Seoul, Korea, where I grew up until I moved to the Bay Area in California. I am now equally comfortable with English and Korean, and I’m excited to connect the two languages by writing in Korean for Confluences.
안녕하세요 저는 1학년 류혜리라고 합니다. 서울에서 태어나 캘리포니아 산호세에서 학교를 다녀 현재는 한국어와 영어가 비슷하게 편하지만 평소 한국어로 글을 쓸 기회가 없었습니다. 오랜만에 한국어로 글을 쓰며 두 언어를 연결할 수 있어 즐겁게 번역했습니다.
Jessica Yu ’22 Hello! I am a freshman from Northern Virginia. I was born in the U.S, and have grown up speaking both English and Chinese at home. Going to school in the U.S has definitely weakened my Chinese skills over time, but I am trying to improve as much as I can by taking Chinese at Amherst.
With sincere thanks to
The IT Department, especially Asha Kinney.
The Center for Community Engagement
The Center for International Student Engagement