Ana Lidia Lopes Rena: The Aspiring Foreign Diplomat
“I never expected to be where I am today,” says Ana Lidia Lopes Rena, a college sophomore at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.
Rena is a first-generation college student who grew up in a Brazilian family in Bridgeport. When she first began attending the University of Bridgeport, in 2015, she never expected she’d end up concentrating in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies.
But Rena’s interest in the Middle East started even before college. She began studying Arabic while attending the Center of Global Studies, a magnet school that is part of Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk, Connecticut. Passionate to further her knowledge of the language, she decided to teach Arabic to young high school students during the summer of 2015 at one of the summer camps offered by Concordia Language Villages, a language and cultural immersion program affiliated with Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.
At Concordia, which offers 15 different summer camps, Rena was put in charge of her own village, Al-Waha, which she says means “oasis.”
Before camp started, Rena put in an intensive week of training. When the campers finally arrived, she immersed them in activities like backgammon, calligraphy, hieroglyphics, and, of course, Arabic.
“We would speak in Arabic all day,” she said.
For Rena, some of her happiest moments were when she gathered with her students at their cabins and everyone had a chance to reflect on favorite parts of the day.
“It would make me happy when they told us how much they learned that day,” she said.
From that point on, Rena knew Arabic would play an essential role in her life.
The University of Bridgeport offers a number of opportunities for students who want to further their knowledge of both Arabic and Middle East. In 2016, Rena took advantage of one of those opportunities when she accepted an offer to study in Jordan at the Princess Sumaya University of Technology, which has a partnership with the University of Bridgeport. At the same time, she took an internship at the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies, an independent think tank based in Amman.
While in Jordan, Rena traveled widely, to towns and cities like Jerash, Ajlun, Irbid, Aqaba, the ancient city of Madaba, the Dead Sea, and Wadi Rum, a protected desert wilderness.
“Studying abroad was very easy in Jordan,” she said. “It’s harder to learn a language when you’re not submerged.
As part of her internship, Rena spent time translating Arabic into English, writing papers, and attending a cultural discourse on Middle Eastern culture. But the internship also focused on political issues and women’s rights.
At its website, the Al-Quds Center lists a number of goals, like furthering political reform in both Jordan and other Arab countries, expanding political participation, promoting freedom of the press, and advocating for equality for both men and women. As part of its mission, it offers also workshops, like those aimed at helping women in Jordan understand politics and start voting, as well as those targeted to helping young people get the resources they need to become politicians.
“That’s something I’m looking into as a future job: I want to make change,” Rena said, adding that she also wants to help strengthen women’s rights in the Middle East, which she now sees as a “big problem.”
“I want to help other people,” she said. “The more I study about the Middle East I see they do need a lot of help.”
Rena is now planning to double major in religion and in international political economy and diplomacy, with a minor in Arabic studies. Meanwhile, she hasn’t forgotten about her early days in Norwalk.
“If it weren’t for the Center of Global Studies I wouldn’t have been on the route I am now,” she says.
What’s next for this global citizen? Hopefully, more study abroad, as well as more Arabic.
“It’s really important if you want to work with people where that target language is spoken,” Rena says, smiling, signature glasses resting on her nose. “They’ll see I’m invested in the language and that I’m willing to continue investing.”
*Ana Rena and Chyna Inez Davis both attended the Center of Global Studies in Norwalk, Connecticut.
