Quinn Holmquist ('16)

My path post-graduation has been atypical - and apparently (though not actually) unrelated to my Romance Studies major. I work and live in a community called North Street, where people with and without disabilities share life, in downtown Durham. Here I relish every opportunity to speak Spanish and Kreyòl, the two languages I focused in. But these opportunities don't present themselves every day.

However, just because everyone in North Street speaks English doesn't mean we share the same language. Here, spoken words are just one small (and secondary) way of communicating. Many of my friends with disabilities learned words late, so they are far more adept at communicating through emotions, gestures, body language, and tone. Though I don't speak Spanish or Kreyol every day, every day I'm leveraging the inter-cultural communication skills I learned in the Romance Studies department to receive the language – and the lovely souls – of my friends here more and more fully.