Last summer (2015) I participated in the Critical Language Scholarship, a 2-month Hindi language program in Jaipur, Rajasthan. I won’t lie—this was absolutely the most fun summer of my life. Learning a language I absolutely love, meeting like-minded, research-oriented friends, traveling throughout Rajasthan, living with a host family—all of these experiences made for a […]

I think all of the CASI interns would agree that the summer went much too fast. It feels like only a short time ago that we arrived excited, nervous, and with generally no idea of what was to come.   It’s a set of mental gymnastics to contrast those first few days at Leap—lost, exhausted […]

One of my professors at Penn (Dr. Nelson Flores) recently wrote a great blog post about how Tim Kaine’s Spanish-speaking abilities have been presented in the media. In this post, he used the concept of raciolinguistic ideologies—the idea that we perceive people’s language use through the prism of their race—to show how “for a white […]

  At the organization I am working at this summer, travel is a constant part of our lives. We change cities every few days—sometimes Delhi, sometimes Yamuna Nagar, and sometimes day trips to Ambala or Karnal. Add on the pleasure travel I do when I have free days, and it adds up to quite a […]

Call it either a golden rule or a cliche, but travel in India (in the US too, to be fair) doesn’t always go as planned. Weather, transportation, timing—sometimes everything works together to make a carefully planned trip go completely off the rails. Our trip this past weekend was definitely one of those times.   Last Sunday […]

  Old Delhi is a treasure trove of Indian history. Red Fort, Jama Masjid, Chandni Chowk–some of Delhi’s most famous sites are located within this walled city built by 17th century Mughal Emperor Shahjahan. What I never expected to find here, however, was a tiny, old-fashioned record (yes, vinyl/LP record!) shop buried within the sprawling […]

  Hi CASI Blog! My name is Jacob Berexa and I am a third-year undergraduate studying South Asia Studies and Linguistics. This summer I am excited to be working for LEAP Skills Academy in Yamuna Nagar, Haryana.   Originally from Brentwood, Tennessee, I was drawn to Penn mostly because of its strong South Asia Studies […]