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As a little girl, Lara Werneck watched her Brazilian-born parents struggle to make themselves understood to American listeners. She caught the “ignorant smirks, glares, eye rolls” from natives, even though her parents “were trying their best to speak proper English.” Her heart broke when their efforts were met with:
“Go back to your own country.”
“I usually had to come in and save the day with my ‘acceptable’ and understandable English,” Werneck (CAS’23) says. But linguistic skill didn’t spare her elementary school taunts about her “smelly” Brazilian lunches. “If I was my older self in that position today, I would definitely educate them on the ingredients my palette knew that they should try, too. But my younger self solely felt embarrassed and ashamed.