Tongue Twisted Traveler

My first language-learning experience coincided with a moment of personal awakening. Growing up in small-town America in the 1980s wasn’t easy, especially as I began to understand myself in ways I didn’t yet have words for. Everything felt narrow, predefined. But that began to change one winter morning in 1984, when a new student arrived in my homeroom. I’ll call him Kenichi, for the sake of privacy. He was the first person from another country I had ever met. His father, a Japanese military officer, had been assigned to the United States, and Kenichi was suddenly part of our quiet, predictable school. The teacher introduced him as “the new kid from the other side of the world,” and something about that phrase lit up my imagination. As our eyes met, there was a moment of recognition, curiosity meeting curiosity. He smiled, and I smiled back, both of us aware that something new had just entered our lives. While most of the class quickly returned to their routines, I could...

The room was always full. Rows of computers stretched from wall to wall, each one humming softly. The screens flickered with exercises, dialogues, and instructions that felt simple on the surface but carried weight for the people sitting there. Some leaned forward, focused. Others hesitated before typing, translating in their heads before committing to a word. A few would glance around, not for answers, but for reassurance. At the front, we moved between screens, checking progress, answering questions, helping when we could. But most of what mattered was happening quietly. It was in the pauses. In the effort. In the decision to keep going. No one was there by accident. Every person in that room had crossed something to get there. A border. A body of water. A line they could not uncross. That is origin to this poem I wrote in July 2004. All are welcome here By Brian Schwarz The ones who come from far away And them, who cross the water near All are welcome here T...

My mother spent her retirement chasing the past. She would travel to Utah to work in the Family History Library, digging through records with a level of focus that felt almost obsessive. At first, it seemed simple. She wanted to understand her Scottish roots. She talked about visiting towns, churches, even imagining the possibility of finding a family castle. But it did not stop there. Her research began to uncover something much more complicated. Our family’s story was not just about heritage. It was tied to the broader history of the Americas. Migration. Power. Systems that shaped entire populations. I remember asking her why she was so driven to keep going. She would always answer the same way. “Because.” At the time, I thought she was racing against time. She had survived cancer and understood how fragile life could be. I assumed she wanted to leave something behind. But I was wrong. “I’m doing it for me,” she told me once. That stayed with me. As I watched her work, I ...

I didn’t plan this. At some point, without really thinking about it, I opened TikTok and started speaking in Portuguese. Not perfectly, not like a teacher, but like someone genuinely trying to connect. And something unexpected happened. Brazil answered. What started as a few videos turned into conversations. Then live streams. Then real connections with people across Brazil and Brazilians living all over the world. I wasn’t studying Portuguese in a classroom. I was living it, one interaction at a time. It reminded me of how I learned Spanish years ago, not through rules and textbooks, but through immersion, music, and relationships. Brazilian TikTok became that same kind of environment. Fast, emotional, and real. Music played a big role. Songs like Evidências were no longer just songs. They became shared experiences. When I posted videos with bilingual captions, something clicked. I was not just understanding the language. I was helping connect two worlds. And somewhere alo...

I recently went back and read one of the first posts I ever wrote on Tongue Twisted Traveler. The title was “Stagnant and confused,” and at the time, that’s exactly how I felt. I wrote, “I’m having trouble picking a program,” and that line stayed with me. It wasn’t just about school. It was about direction. I felt pulled in too many directions but could not choose one path. It was 2002. I was in my early thirties. I had recently quit my job in journalism and was thinking about transitioning full-time into adult learning. At the time, I was working in the language lab at Miami Dade College and had just been hired as a First-Year Experience coordinator. At the same time, I was applying to graduate school, trying to decide what direction my life should take. I said, “everything I want to study relates to my other interests in some way.” That was the truth. Language, culture, global systems, communication. They were all connected, but I did not yet understand how. Each day felt...