Ei! My name is Antônio Jorge Medeiros Batista Silva (yes—four last names!) and I'm a '25 from Governador Valadares, Brazil. My journey to Dartmouth has crossed two continents, three countries, and over 10 schools—and I'm a strong believer that everyone's path to the Big Green was unique in a way. At Dartmouth, I study Linguistics, Native American & Indigenous Studies, and Spanish. I am passionate about social justice, language-learning, and the oxford comma!
This class is an introduction to the Spanish minor and major courses and, although I did not expect to particularly like it, it not only turned out to be my favourite but it made me start considering a degree in the department!
In this class, we analysed different productions of Latinx American theatre. Prof. Analola Santana was probably the best person I met this year at Dartmouth. Being her student was a very important experience as I try to navigate my potential majors and minors.
In this class, I was able to carve time out of my busy Dartmouth schedule to study and learn my Indigenous language: Krenak. With the help of Prof. Gokke, all students were encouraged to develop a final project that spoke to their community's needs for language learning and revitalisation. It was an extremely important class for me, not only academically, but also for my personal healing process.
I had the honour of spending my sophomore fall in Madrid, taking part in the Spanish FSP. There, Prof. Martín was not only a great professor, responsible for my favourite lecture of the program, but also an incredible company throughout our classes and in-country trips. Great way to wrap up my Spanish minor, honestly!
This was my second class in the NAIS department, and thus it took me one step closer to wrapping up my major. Nonetheless, it was Prof. Powell's genuine charisma and caring personality that made it my favourite of the term!
This course was definitely life changing! Prof. Pochedley, a visiting post-doc of the Potawatomi nation did a great job at keeping the students engaged while teaching us to see the land we inhabit as a source of knowledge and spirituality. In a majority Indigenous classroom, we got to develop individual projects related to our traditional homelands, learning to navigate the world through Native world lenses.
Prof. Gómez is one of those profs I've always wanted to take a class with. His work with the Horror genre in Modern Spanish literatures amazes me, and it was an honour to guide in-class discussions and develop my own research on the themes of science, testimony, and fear.
LING54 is an umbrella course: the actual content of the course may vary each year, but it is the common letter-number code to refer to the course taught abroad by your accompanying Dartmouth Linguistics professor. In this year's Linguistics Foreign Study Program (FSP), LING54 was a 'Language Documentation' class, wonderfully taught by Prof. David Peterson.
Before this class, I had no idea what visual and cultural studies actually encompassed. Every chat with Prof. Broner opened my eyes to a different analysis or method for interpreting literature, and for that, I feel truly lucky! We got to discuss films made by Indigenous women from all over Latin America, exposing the class to distinct ways of interacting with and stewarding the environment.
Long time, no see… Just kidding, it is no surprise that I am here again. I wanted to make a celebratory note, though: this is my 25th post at People Places Pines! This blog is now reaching its sixth month of existence – a collection of my favourite Dartmouth memories since day one!
Today, after a long conversation with some friends who come from similar – yet very different – backgrounds, I realized an important part of my experience at college has not been recorded here yet. That is being multicultural. As you can see from my first blog post, I come from a Lebanese-Indigenous-Brazilian household. From my mother's side, I am Arab. From my father's, Native. Nonetheless, I was born and raised as any other Brazilian kid. During high school, I moved to Canada, where I began my experience of being multicultural in the diaspora. My father, at the same time, moved to Angola, where I spend every other break I get from school.
On a trip with POCO (People of Color Outdoors)!
At Dartmouth, in a way I did not really expect, my identity strongly influences my day-to-day life – from the smallest of the things, like the people I hang around with, to more important ones, like the classes I pick. I even have a show at Dartmouth's WebDCR about this! And honestly, this is something I only realized when telling my parents about the classes I had chosen for Spring term. If you are curious, I am currently enrolled in my first four courses trimester at Dartmouth. In theory, these are really not recommended due to the intense course load involved. But, due to a myriad of reasons, I decided to give it a shot.
Heading to the Dartmouth Broadcasting studio, where we hold a weekly show on multiculturalism!
In this first week of classes, I have already fallen in love with all of my courses and professors. All of them are extremely interesting and engaging, especially considering the personal relationship I have with each. I am taking MES 07.05 – History of Arabic Language; NAS 30.25 – Intro Indigenous Languages; SPAN 30 – Intro Hispanic Studies I, and LING 20 – Experimental Phonetics. Although at a first glance, they do not seem related at all, these courses very well encompass the different aspects of my personal and academic interests.
LING and SPAN are required courses for the Foreign Study Programs (FSPs) I got accepted into for my Sophomore year. At the same time, they take me a step further into (what I currently think to be) my prospective major: Linguistics modified with Spanish. On the other hand, NAS is a one-at-a-lifetime opportunity to carve time out of my schedule to learn my own Indigenous language, Krenak. This class, along with MES – which is one of the many seminar classes required by Dartmouth for all of its first-year students – speak directly to my identity and thus have been extremely important for me as a multiracial, multicultural, and a multilingual first-year student.
The good part of having such a diverse background at a school like Dartmouth is that I get to dive deeper into all aspects of my identity as part of my academic journey. I very genuinely could not have made a better course selection for this term!
Academics can be challenging at Dartmouth. But there are lots of groups across campus here to support you through your academic journey. Read on for my experience asking for help and a few organizations that might be helpful to you!
Every Dartmouth student is required to demonstrate proficiency in a language other than English. Here's my experience navigating the language requirement!
