“I really wanted to come back and be a community college instructor because I wanted students to see someone who looked like them…someone who was proud of their culture and told them culture matters.” ~ Stephanie Briones
Located on Church and Willow avenues in Southeast Fresno, the Juan Felipe Herrera Elementary School grounds are visually striking, with a large orange entrance contrasted with the dark blue administrative office and the vivid sky that often graces Fresno in the late summer.
A boy of about 11 years old, Antonio Petrosino, watched as this mix of soldiers from around the world passed through his town of Coperchia, in the mountains just north of Salerno in Southern Italy. He would try to observe the soldiers who spoke different languages and came from diverse cultures.
“If you want to hear Mahler’s Symphony Number 5 on this level, you would most likely have to drive to San Francisco; you’d have to drive to L.A. Tickets are 200 or 300 dollars each. It’s an expensive experience.” ~ Dr. Thomas Loewenheim.
Through his experience in the Fulbright program, Sharma intends to form a larger performance-for-communication theoretical model that can be applied across cultures.
“It was so dangerous. They plant bombs in the street so any car that goes there explodes. You also can’t tell if it’s going to happen to you or the other person because it happened to other people before me or after me.”