Caterina Leronimo

Caterina is currently an Arabic Studies major at the University of Maryland College Park. In December 2021 she graduated with a self-made degree in Gender and Sexual Identity in Arab Migration, and she wrote her thesis on the orientalization of homophobia and its consequences for queer asylum seekers in Europe who are from Southwest Asia and North Africa. She began studying Arabic for many reasons, but mainly because Arabic is a widely spoken and helpful language to have when working in the field of migration, alongside the other languages she speaks. She chose the Arabic Flagship program because she wanted to take full advantage of every resource, she had to gain proficiency in Standard Arabic and its dialects, and Flagship provided language partners, cultural activities, and study abroad opportunities that majoring in Arabic alone didn’t offer. In the future, she hopes to work as an asylum lawyer either in the US or Europe, where her family is from.