Advocacy Through Storytelling
“To buy food, you had to wait and wake up at maybe 4-5am, and go to a supermarket that might have food that will arrive, and wait for 6 hours maybe to buy a packet of sugar, or only a packet of flour, or maybe oil, or maybe soup. It was not a life.”
Growing up, my family referred to the always smiling and always generous Jean-Yves Boulard as “the bread man.” I have fond memories of stepping into his bakery, begging my parents to let me have an extra sticky bun and choosing which baguette we would eat at dinner.
Now a college student, I was delighted to sit down with him and learn about his experience coming from France to the United States. We discussed French perceptions of America, his life-long love for learning, and the complexity of navigating different languages and discovering subconscious taboos when migrating to a new country. Truly a fascinating man of many talents, Jean-Yves described his story to me as having three threads; his professional path from teacher to baker, the switch from his native culture and language to a host one, and the story of his relationship starting in one country and language and deepening in another, all which “intertwine, reverberate, and influence one another.” What struck me most was when he remarked that “the fascinating aspect of the succession is that I could not have been a baker without having read all the philosophy and literature I did” prior.
Continue reading “Jean-Yves Boulard – From France to the United States”Life is a story about creating oneself. My life is all about my dreams and visions for the future. To define myself, I am an educated, Palestinian, multilingual, Muslim woman who finds the actual meaning of her life in pursuing her education despite all obstacles. Since childhood, I found myself in a position of responsibility.
Dr. Prashanth Bharadwaj is a professor of management and Dean’s Associate in the Eberly College of Business and IT at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He first came to the United States in 1988 to attend graduate school but stayed because of the economic and educational opportunities he was granted. Although he has lived in the United States for three decades, he still retains close connections to India and even helps American students to discover his beautiful country through study abroad options in the winter.
Continue reading “From India to the United States – Dr. Prashanth Bharadwaj”