Michael Le ’15 Senior Profile: Hispanic Studies

Being a Vietnamese American born in New Orleans who jumped from French to Latin to Spanish and then eventually Japanese, I sometimes wonder if I could have majored in anything but Hispanic Studies with a minor in Japanese. What drew me to the programs was the heaps of cultural theory work that helped me make sense of the world around me, both on an academic level as well as a personal level. Anderson’s notions on self-fashioning and imagined communities; Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto on the traps of identity politics; Altarriba’s defense of graphic novels as a medium of cultural trauma in El arte de volar; and Azuma’s theories on database consumption. The list goes on and on. Of course, a big part of the Hispanic Studies and Japanese Studies department are the professors, and I’ve been blessed to work with such wonderful and supportive people throughout my entire college career. Through their help, I was able to secure multiple internships, research opportunities, and eventually a TA position. Because of my linguistic and analytical skills gained from my Hispanic and Japanese Studies background, I was accepted into the JET Programme and will be teaching English in Japan for the next few years after graduation.