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Bridging Community & Culture: Mosaic Cultural Identity
Syarifah Nur Fathima is a Japanese International student of Malaysian descent who was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She came to Canada 2 years ago (September 2017) and has since been volunteering at the London Japanese School and acting as a TA for Professor Mitsume Fukui here at Western. In Japan, she studied Japanese Literature and Culture at Musashino University. For her graduate at Western, she completed an English Teaching program for International students in order to further develop her English-speaking skills. She just recently graduated and hopes to find work in London before returning to Malaysia. There she hopes to secure a career teaching Japanese while utilizing her polylingual skills.
I Am Not Just "The Girl From Bolivia": An International Student’s Experiences of Community in Bolivia and London
This portrait delves into Maya Fernandez's story of being known as “the girl from Bolivia." The portrait illustrates Maya’s feelings towards this phrase and how her experiences “as an outsider” have impacted her experiences in the London community. Maya is a second year MIT international student at Western University who explores the certain interactions that she has faced. She then compares how relationships are developed in both Bolivia and London. She explains the social inequalities that she has observed, the stereotypes of being from another country, and what it’s like to be “an outsider" in London, Ontario. Overall, this portrait thoroughly describes Maya for the complex and unique being that she is, rather than just as “the girl from Bolivia.”