“Pardon me” were the first words spoken to her as a fellow student brushed up against her in the crowded hall of her new high school. The first thing she felt? Gratitude.
“If someone would bump into you in France, they would just ignore you and continue to pass by,” says Brenda Vu. Brenda, who spent most of her childhood in France, is the daughter of refugees from Laos. “People in Minnesota are very nice and show a lot more affection than they do in France,” she says. Minnesota Nice “has never been the norm for me, but I fully appreciate it.”
Brenda, a sophomore, has lots of opportunities to bump into people at UMD as she works towards a double major in biology and Hispanic studies.
Click here to read the complete article.
Click here to return to Foreign Languages & Literatures News & Events.