Changing the World One Passport at a Time
Lamar Shambley '10 was transformed by a study abroad experience at W&M.
By Lamar Shambley '10
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had an affinity for the Spanish language. Growing up in New York City meant that Spanish was as common as dollar slice pizza. Spanish was in subway ads, my favorite TV shows, the music on my Walkman, the corner bodega. But, as a kid from the projects of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Spanish-speaking countries like Spain or those in Latin America seemed as far away to me as Staten Island.
So I did the next best thing - I studied Spanish in school. In my junior year of high school, an opportunity to study abroad appeared, but my heart sank when I saw the price tag. It reinforced the idea that ever going international was not meant for kids like me.
When a similar opportunity appeared in college at William & Mary, I rejected it again without hesitation, telling my advisor Dr. Aday that I couldn’t possibly afford it. He insisted that with my skillset and passion that I belonged on the trip and pledged to support me. Within a week, it was settled. My first trip outside of the U.S. would be a service trip to the Dominican Republic called SOMOS, the Student Organization for Medical Outreach and Sustainability, to support a student-led public health project in a barrio outside of Santo Domingo.
I remember every sight, sound, and smell from that trip. I remember the airplane buzzing with conversation from we “eager-to-change-the-world” millennials. I remember being enthralled by Anthony Santos’s “Donde Estará” blaring from the speakers in a local colmado. Most of all, I remember the nervousness realizing I would have to actually use the Spanish I’d only been learning in the classroom up until then. The nerves dissipated quickly as with each conversation, my confidence grew.
That week-long adventure catalyzed something in me — not only would this Bed-Stuy kid see the world, but he would engage with it. My first international trip pushed me to see myself differently. I began to explore all the parts of who I am: my privilege as a Westerner, my struggle as a Black American, and my impact as a U.S. citizen when traveling abroad. I returned to the United States with a refreshed sense of purpose.
Since then, I’ve taken every opportunity I could to travel, develop my Spanish skills and engage with the world outside of Brooklyn. Thanks to receiving a Gilman International scholarship, in my junior year I participated in the William & Mary Semester Abroad in Seville, taking university-level courses and fully immersing myself in the language. I hiked a volcano outside of Managua, Nicaragua and lived with a homestay family a few hours south in San Juan del Sur. I backpacked solo through Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia, ziplining in the jungles of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, island hopping through the Guna Yala, and dancing on the beaches of Taganga. My language skills grew tremendously, a newfound sense of independence and curiosity enveloped me, and, most importantly, I was able to connect with people from vastly different backgrounds than my own.
These experiences inspired me to become a high school Spanish teacher at a predominately Black school, where I could speak earnestly about my background. I was a Black boy whose life was transformed by studying abroad and whose self-esteem was bolstered by linguistic studies. Currently, only 20% of U.S. K-12 students are enrolled in a foreign language course, an alarmingly low average compared to many European nations whose primary and secondary student foreign language enrollment soars above 90%. As residents of a nation with the second largest Spanish-speaking population, and soon to have the largest by 2050, we need to invest in enriching language learning opportunities for our youth that go beyond the four walls of a classroom. These education abroad opportunities, extensively researched and proven to change the course of a student’s life, rarely include students of color, especially Black/African-American students.
We know that a student’s engagement in learning, their sense of confidence, and their motivation to continue studying a second language at the university level improves after traveling and studying in a foreign country. I decided to start Teens of Color Abroad because I saw myself in many of my students: the drive, the curiosity, the passion, and the need for a chance.
At Teens of Color Abroad, our mission is to provide high school students of color with language immersion study abroad experiences. For our pilot summer program (July 2020), we’re partnering with Centro Mundolengua to bring a cohort of high school students of color from Brooklyn to Seville, Spain for a two-week language immersion program. Students will take three hours of small group language training daily, live with a homestay family, and participate in culturally immersive activities, including museum tours, flamenco dance lessons, paella cooking workshops, and much more. Upon returning to New York City, students will organize a series of Bingo Nights, conducted entirely in Spanish, with a local New York City senior citizen center, to foster cross-cultural and intergenerational conversations.
There is an incredible opportunity to engage our youth of color with creative language learning opportunities and we must meet their eagerness with these resources. My personal story with travel and language study is not at all unique. Ask anyone who studied abroad how those experiences impacted who they are today, and I am certain the response will be somewhere between a long story of a memorable adventure to a short anecdote of a transformative experience. I believe everyone should have equal access to this opportunity of a lifetime. Everyone, including teens of color. Because they deserve the world, too.
This essay first appeared on The Renewal Project, which is made possible by Allstate. Learn more by subscribing to their newsletter, Renewal 365.
