K.M.

Karim Mohamed

“My parents put such a big emphasis on staying true to your roots and being connected back to your culture. But I think when I started caring was when we moved to Egypt, because I realized how important speaking Arabic and being tied to the culture that you come from was for my development as a person. I think knowing the language of your culture is honestly great because, first of all, if you ever travel back to that country you have that personal experience of speaking Arabic; you have that common factor with the people in that country. I remember one time I was at the pyramids where all the tourists go. We were at the very back of the line and we were talking in Arabic and the people who were selling the admission tickets heard us speaking Arabic. And they kind of ushered us to a side door gave us a full tour in Arabic and everything. I have a lot of friends who are Arabic speakers who go to the other high schools and they don’t have the same experience that I have had while taking Arabic as a language. I’ve had the experience of being taught by native Arabic speakers and diving deeper into grammar that I wouldn’t necessarily get at a high school. That was one of the main reasons that I came to Community. Because going here instilled in me a sense of responsibility because everything here is based on trust.”