Airports are funny places – they remind you you’re in between worlds. Maybe it’s the waiting, or the liminal space of not quite being here nor there. As I sit in a quiet corner of SFO, now back in the U.S., I’m full of thoughts that only make sense now, at the end.
Firstly, I chose countries where English is spoken (and is becoming increasingly dominant) as part of my project, but it’s been amazing to actually hear and experience these different Englishes. In Singapore, the Philippines, and New Zealand especially, people talk openly about their regional Englishes and what they mean for identity, but of course they exist everywhere. In South Africa, English can dominate even in the presence of so many other official languages. In Wales, English sits uneasily alongside Welsh, with tension and history layered into every word choice. As someone who studies linguistics in the U.S., I have constantly been thinking about how even American Englishes vary across regions and communities. To speak English is never just to “speak English” – it’s to take part in a much larger story.
Another thing that kept surfacing: what it means to be “indigenous” shifts dramatically depending on where you are. The Māori discovered and settled Aotearoa, the first to inhabit it and the first to name it. In the Philippines, you have over 175 languages, but the “national” language is built from just one – so whose voices are centered, and whose are left out? In Singapore, who really is “indigenous,” and who is instead a large, longstanding community that still deserves recognition and representation? In South Africa, “indigenous” groups aren’t confined to today’s state borders – the borders themselves were drawn by colonial powers, cutting across people’s histories. Wales, which we often lump in as part of colonial Britain, was actually itself one of the first places to be colonized by England. Being white didn’t protect Welsh people from having their language, culture, and land suppressed. Seeing these differences up close made me realize how slippery the word “indigenous” really is – it always depends on context, and it’s always entangled with power.
The farther I went around the world, the more connections arose. Every country I visited, another one I’d been to would resurface, whether in its history or in its present. Colonial powers, of course, overlapped, but the resonances weren’t just historical. I overheard a Singaporean family at Mount Eden in New Zealand. I saw pins at the Auckland Museum calling for the end of apartheid and freedom for Nelson Mandela. I rewatched a haka performed by Māori government officials, then noticed comments from Zulu viewers in South Africa saying they stood with the Māori and their fight. Resistance movements inspiring each other across continents – it kept showing up. Even sports held unexpected connections: rugby dominates in both Wales and New Zealand. Wars stitched timelines together: the world wars pulled these countries into the same moments, forcing them onto parallel tracks that I kept stumbling upon across my journey. Everything was tangled, layered – which seems so obvious to say, but I think it’s easy to forget when we stay in one place for too long. I didn’t expect to visit so many prison cells where freedom fighters were once held, but once I did, it felt almost inevitable. Mandela, Gandhi, Rizal. Their physical bodies were confined, but their ideas weren’t. Walking through those spaces, I felt the heaviness of visions that refused to stay locked away. Different names, different struggles, but in the end, the same cause: freedom, dignity, and representation.
This grant required me to choose a globally applicable topic. But one of my biggest takeaways is: how can something not be global? Everything we do, just by existing on this earth, connects outward. Language, resistance, identity – they can’t be studied in isolation because they never were isolated to begin with. We’re all just people, on this planet, figuring it out as we go.
With that, I will soon board the tenth and final flight of this trip. 10 weeks, 5 countries, 2,776 photographs, countless conversations…and somehow it all feels like just the beginning.
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this experience, and to all those who have been following along through this blog!
Grateful to you,
Maya
