Krizia Lopez (Chinese 2010) founded Puentes Community Translators in Queens, New York with the mission of reducing language and resource barriers for immigrants by training local bilingual young adults in the community as translators. Supported by a 2020 CLS Alumni Development Fund grant, Krizia ha…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Yasin Khan (Urdu 2014) formed an Urdu Club with heritage Urdu speakers of varying fluency in the San Francisco Bay Area. The club was formed when Yasin found that many Urdu heritage speakers, although they may have older relatives who speak the language fluently, were not comfortable having open co…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Andi Kao (Indonesian 2019) organized an exhibit of artwork produced by Indonesian migrant fishermen in Taiwan, held in-person in September 2020. Andi’s goal was to provide a showcase for items of self-expression by people from a community that is marginalized in the dominant culture of Taiwan, th…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Damian Harris-Hernandez (Turkish 2012) sought support from the 2020 ADF to improve his oral and aural Turkish language skills with the purpose of assisting refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. In 2017, Damian founded the Refugee Translation Project, a non-profit that provides free translation servic…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
With a 2020 CLS Alumni Development Fund grant, Clara Haizlett (Arabic 2017) continued the work she began on Sandstone, a podcast project that explores the relationship between the Arab World and Appalachia, which was originally supported by a 2019 ADF grant. When the pandemic changed Clara’s origin…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Irma-Laura Green (Persian 2018) attended a 2-day Modified Oral Proficiency Interview training in early March 2020 at Wofford College, working toward her goal of pursuing Limited OPI Certification through ACTFL. The session highlighted the specifications for ratable samples from the Novice-Low to th…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Similar to many others, Alden DiCamillo’s (Indonesian 2019) project changed from its original proposal for an in-person poetry reading to an online collection due to the pandemic. Alden focused on imagining life in the future and curated a collection of stories, poetry and other artwork, translated…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Bennett Comerford (Bangla 2011, 2012, 2014) worked virtually with a Bangla language tutor to further his language skills in order to translate two challenging nineteenth-century Bengali literary texts. These texts comprise the heart of Bennett’s dissertation project for his doctorate in comparative…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Connie Chen and Alison Yee, both alumnae of the 2013 Chinese program held a series of virtual events co-hosted with the San Mateo County Chinese Health Initiative to provide training for mental health practitioners in the Bay area on discussing mental health in culturally-sensitive ways with Chines…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
Hannah Carlan (Punjabi 2017), Laura Valencia (Hindi 2011) and several other colleagues founded the South Asia Solidarity Interpreting (SASI) Collective in 2019 to further language justice in South Asia through increasing representation of linguistic diversity in South Asian organizations when it co…
Alumni Projects — April 12, 2021
A Program of the 
