Sounia
I grew up in Bangui, Central African Republic (CAR), where it was common to meet people who spoke more than two languages. Similar to the United States, it is a melting pot of immigrants who migrated from neighboring countries such as Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria in the 1900s in search of a better life and opportunities. My parents were born in CAR; my mom was born to Nigerian and Chadian parents, and my dad was born to Nigerian parents. I grew up speaking Sango, Kanuri, Arabic, and French. I’ve always found languages fascinating and an easy way to connect with a community if you happen to know their language. Despite moving to Chad at the age of 10 due to a civil war in CAR, my love for learning new languages never stopped.
While in Chad, where my grandmother is from, I became fluent in Arabic and even picked up some Fulah along the way. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to retain as much since there weren’t many people around to practice with. When I moved to the U.S. about nine years ago, at the age of 13, with my mom and three siblings, I focused mostly on improving my English, which became the predominant language spoken in our home. Looking back, I regret that shift because I lost fluency in some of the languages I once spoke, like French, Kanuri, and Arabic. I can still speak them to a certain extent, but not nearly as well as before. As a result, English has become the language I often use to express myself and the easiest to use when communicating with my family here in the United States. However, I still switch between languages, especially when talking to relatives back home, despite it being a broken version. My mom and I sometimes mix Sango, French, and Arabic when we speak.
Over the past year, I’ve made it a goal to improve my fluency in French and Arabic, so I’ve been taking classes at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). One of the things I love most about these classes is the sense of community meeting other heritage speakers and students who are learning the language. In my French class, we recently worked on a project where we created dialogues for a character in the Comic series called Cedric, which has some popularity in Francophone cultures, and it reminded me how much I enjoy listening to French music, especially artists like Dadju and Aya Nakamura. I also love watching French anime because it brings back memories of my childhood in CAR.
Learning these languages again is important to me, not just personally, so I can reconnect with my culture and communicate more easily, but also professionally as a pre-law student majoring in Information and Decision Sciences. I’m interested in working with an international humanitarian aid organization, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as an advocacy and awareness volunteer. Given my own experience of having to find refuge in another country, I want to help others navigate similar challenges, whether through legal advocacy or policy work.
French has also become a way for me to stay connected with my family in France. I make an effort to call my siblings more often and practice speaking with them. Even though English is now my strongest language, I feel a deep emotional connection to French and Arabic, and reclaiming them has been a way to rediscover parts of myself that I don’t want to lose.