As galegiñas: united communities. Galician & Basque.

 Similar to after every summer camp, I feel emotionally hang over. During the past conference (ICML 2023), I was very lucky to meet people from other minorized communities (Catalan, Galician, Tyrolean, Frisian, Friulian, Irish...) who shared the same interests as me. We all lived at campus dorms, and we would meet daily during the exhausting (but great) 12h program, so it did feel like a camp.🏕

The first day of breakfast, I woke up late (expected). I recognized a Galician student from the train, and I shyly asked if I could join "the Galicians' table". Little did I know what sort of cool people they were. 🫣

First of all, out of the four of them, only one was Galician-born. The others, as they said, were Galician-hearted. They all did research on the Galician language and identity. Two were born and raised in the US, and the professor in Ireland; however, they all became in love with the Galician culture after living there and learning the language. I would have sworn that one of them even had Galician accent in their English. 🗣

As you might have imagined by now, they were all language activators (those who enable others to activate their minorized language). After spending some time together, they managed to talk only in Galician, while I (and others) would keep it up in Spanish. The wine also helped to throw some Galician words here and there. Sometimes it would be Portuguese, but well, I tried. 🍷😵

At some point during our last night, I started producing Spanish with Galician intonation. Not surpised. It had already happened before to my group of friends and me with Asturian accent. Either they are sticky tones or we reeeaally want to be part of the group. 🐑🐑🐑

In short, I am grateful for having the opportunity to share moments and learn from other young members of a community. If you ever have the chance, I would recommend you to try to create connections with others. Luckily, we are not alone.

🗣 Se falas galego, fálame en galego 🗣

[If you speak Galician, talk to me in Galician]

I don’t speak any, but I would love to.

Grazas: Kalee, Dani & Annie 🫶

E á meu referente de IG, Miguel 🌻

@katerinalilac @daniel.amarelo @aornelles @galician_tradition

Original post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuAUQeMosFL/?igsh=dmF5YTJ6dzRtc2Zr