Connecting Learning to Life

One of the greatest difficulties in creating this section of the portfolio is all the things I could not include. What is missing matters just as much as what appears on the page. This section cannot fully capture the countless lunches, conversations, and meaningful moments I have shared with native Portuguese speakers in both my personal and professional life. It does not show the Brazilian family I speak with regularly at the public library where I work, a family that, despite the hardships they face daily, seems to breathe a little easier knowing that there is a friendly face there who can speak to them in their native language. It also does not show the many people I came into contact with professionally while running an English school. I have met people from every level of Brazilian professional life, from the smallest entrepreneur selling on a street corner to major business figures such as César Jordão. Those interactions have been incredibly meaningful to me because they gave me insight not only into the Brazilian economy, but also into the mindset of people who want a better life for themselves and their families.

I also think of my friend Ricardo Costa from Minas Gerais, whom I respect not only as a lawyer and professional, but also as a genuine friend. Relationships like these have shaped my understanding of Portuguese far more deeply than any isolated classroom exercise could. They taught me that language is never just vocabulary or grammar. It is trust, access, dignity, and relationship. Still, because these experiences cannot easily be reduced to a few screenshots, messages, or business plans, the artifacts I chose for this section end up reflecting something slightly different. They represent both what I have built and where I am headed.

The first artifact, my résumé in Portuguese, may appear ordinary at first glance, but I chose it because it represents something practical and significant: the ability to present myself professionally in another language. My résumé is not just a list of jobs. It is evidence that I can function in Portuguese in a real-world, professional context. It shows that I can translate not only words, but also tone, expectations, and cultural norms into a form that is useful in the workplace. In that sense, it demonstrates an important kind of cultural competence. It reflects my desire to build professional relationships in Portuguese and to use the language in settings that extend beyond the classroom. The résumé presents my academic background, work experience, and professional interests in a way that could help open doors to employment and future opportunities. I included it because I want this portfolio to show that Portuguese has become part of my professional identity, not just my academic one.

At the same time, I did not want this section to be defined only by a document as functional as a résumé. That is why the second artifact, my experimental poem “Familiar(idade),” matters so much to me. Unlike the résumé, this piece shows the emotional, cultural, and psychological side of moving between languages. The poem explores what it feels like to exist in an in-between space, where Portuguese and English are not fully separated but constantly pressing against one another. In the opening pages, the speaker moves through an airplane cabin, reflecting on language, self-consciousness, and the subtle tension of deciding whether to remain in Portuguese or switch to English. Later, through the interaction with a Brazilian father and daughter and through the shifting bilingual voice of the text, the poem becomes less about grammar and more about belonging, distance, recognition, and misunderstanding.

I chose this poem because it captures something that a résumé never could: the inner experience of living between languages and cultures. It reflects the mindset that develops when language becomes deeply personal. It is about listening, hesitation, pride, affection, memory, and the strange way a language can make you feel both close to others and slightly outside of them at the same time. In many ways, this artifact represents what I have learned from Paloma Vidal, who personally helped me see that language can be fragmented, layered, and emotionally charged, and that those qualities are not weaknesses but part of what makes multilingual experience so rich. This poem shows that my Portuguese education has not only prepared me to communicate professionally, but has also taught me to think more deeply about identity, voice, and human connection.

Together, these two artifacts represent two sides of how I have developed as a Portuguese major at BYU. One shows professional readiness; the other shows personal and intellectual depth. One opens doors outward; the other looks inward. Both matter. As I move forward, I want to continue developing Portuguese in both of these directions. I want to keep using it in professional spaces, building meaningful relationships and opportunities, but I also want to keep exploring the deeper emotional and cultural dimensions of language. More than anything, I have learned that truly understanding the response these personal and professional relationships elicit in us may be even more important than simply knowing what these things are.