Globalize DC is pleased to introduce our readers to the students in our online Japanese Tamago program, introduced in SY2020-21, in response to the social restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. They were selected through a citywide, competitive application process, and represent schools across the city.

Nathaniel Angafor
Benjamin Banneker Academic High School

Nathaniel is a passionate, driven, and open-minded individual. He loves to learn about different countries, languages, and especially cultures. Nathaniel is very passionate about anything STEM related, especially math. Nathaniel spends his free time either practicing whichever language he is learning, programming, or just passing the time on Netflix. His dream is to learn at least 4 languages to a B2 level by the age of 25 and study / live abroad in a variety of countries including Japan, Russia, and Ukraine. Nathaniel loves interacting and working with people and one of his greatest traits is his ability to properly and efficiently manage his time.

Ronin Hugo Arnold-Lee
DC International School

Ronin is in his junior year of high school and comes from a very large family. He is half Trinidadian and half Irish-American.  He really enjoys playing video games, watching anime, and drawing. He first became interested in Japan from watching anime and enjoying how the Japanese language sounded. This made him start exploring more of Japanese culture and increased his interest even more. He loves Japanese food, culture, and even got to travel to Japan after finishing middle school.  He traveled a lot around the world growing up as a child with his family, living in Indonesia and Switzerland. He really enjoys learning about other cultures, and wants to go back to Japan to learn more! 

Kourtney Beauvais
School Without Walls

Kourtney enjoys debate, writing, and swimming. In her free time she can be found reading, watching a random show on Netflix, or even crocheting. One of Kourtney’s passions has been learning about new cultures since she was exposed to so many growing up. She has had this opportunity to travel and see the world as part of a military family, and hopes to do the same in the future. She is fascinated with the different languages, norms, and values that define regions around the world. Her experiences and curiosity have inspired her to pursue a career in international relations or foreign policy.

Owen Blank
School Without Walls

They enjoy reading, playing video games, and MTG (Magic the Gathering, a card game). Math is their favorite subject and they helped out in their school library before high school. They are interested in Japanese mythology and history. They do DnD (Dungeons and Dragons) afterschool and read Hunger Games in 6 hours in middle school. They have one younger brother and mother and father. They did kendo for a year before the pandemic and have the rank of 5 kyu.

Londell Boyd
Cesar Chavez Public Charter School-Parkside

Londell watches a lot of anime, reads a lot of manga, plays video games, which just overall made him interested into the culture. He’s lost count of how much anime he’s watched, and manga he’s read. He always wanted to visit Japan anyway, due to how advanced the technology is there, and how much fun things you could do there. He also just feels like it’s just overall more peaceful there. He knows he’ll stick out like a sore thumb, but he still would want to go. Honestly if it was up to him, he would live in Japan, but he has no family there so they would be very worried about him. Londell wishes to one day write a light novel and have it adapted to an anime. If he isn’t spending most of his time focusing on his school work, he is bettering his writing skills, drawing, or playing the game. He is very determined about his goals and uses the term “when” rather than “if” when speaking of the future.  

Nathanielle Campo
Benjamin Banneker Academic High School

Nathanielle’s favorite subject in school is science, mainly biology. That is why he enjoys learning about Japanese culture. Japan, to him, is so fascinating because it has the right balance between advancements in technology and the peacefulness of their geography in their countryside. He enjoys time in nature and likes to garden as a pastime. He wishes that one day, he will get the opportunity to visit Japan and utilize his newfound skills from attending this program. Nathanielle dreamed of becoming an astronaut throughout his childhood, but nature and Japan ground him back to Earth. 

Chamiya Carnathan
School Without Walls High School

Chamiya is a book-lover, a writer, and an artist. She has always been drawn to animals and later in life, she would like to become a veterinarian. She likes learning new materials and Japanese is next in line for her set of challenges. ‘Japanese Tamago’ is a great way to learn Japanese while learning the culture. Chamiya is known for being ‘A Beautiful Thorn in the Side’ since she tells terrible jokes. For example, Why do we tell actors to “break a leg?” Because every play has a cast.

Micah Clark
Benjamin Banneker Academic High School

Micah is a very interesting person. She has many interests and things she likes to do. She enjoys writing, it is her passion. She writes poems and short stories all the time. Writing makes her happy and keeps her sane. And so, English is her favorite subject. She loves reading books and tales about anything. Specifically, she loves literature and all pertaining to that. Personally, she is a very talkative person although she is shy. She enjoys talking about various topics and getting to know other people. Nature is also her best friend. She enjoys riding bikes and spending time outside with all the trees and flowers. Learning languages is another one of the things she enjoys doing. She aspires to be multilingual when she grows up and becomes an adult. Her love for languages has inspired her to join Japanese Tamago along with many other reasons. Languages are very fun and relaxing to learn and it’s something she is passionate about. 

Raniya Colon
The Washington Seed School of DC

Raniya has a fun personality and is very friendly when she opens up. She has many hobbies she likes to do. Some are Cooking, Designing, Hair and she is fond of expressing herself in makeup. She has two talents. She loves singing and dancing. She likes helping others that are in need emotionally or mentally. A skill that she mastered is Empathy. She takes interest in the Japanese culture to learn more about where her family grew up but also loves the culture’s food. She wants to be able to study in a place like Japan later for the experience.

Mariama Diop
School Without Walls High School

Mariama is a creative and artistic girl who is into listening to kpop, watching K-dramas and anime. She got intrigued into Asian and Japanese culture from the food and from her aunt who has been to South Korea. She is interested in learning Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and French. One day Mariama would like to study abroad in Japan while teaching there, and even live there for a couple of years. Mariama is really into traveling and wants to make more friends along the way.

Nia Fowler-Washington
Seed Public Charter School of Washington, DC

Nia is a 9th grader and her favorite subject in school is math. She likes to play video or mind stimulating games in her free time. The reason she got into the Japanese Tamago program is because she thought it would be a good opportunity for her to better herself and expand her horizons by learning a new language. She is an advanced learning and a 4.0 average student. School means a lot to her and she is very dedicated to things she puts her mind to, because she wants to be great. Some of her favorite shows are ones that teach good lessons and have suspense and mystery, such as Get Even, Moesha, and 13 Reasons Why.

Emanuel Garcia
Cesar Chavez PCS – Parkside

Emanuel is a very unique individual. Growing up in Washington DC, he has been exposed to many different cultures, but the one that caught his eye was the Japanese culture. The biggest reasons why can be attributed to fashion, car culture, and art. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, skateboarding, competitive gaming, and listening to music. He plans on visiting Japan in the future, and joining the Japanese Tamago program was the perfect opportunity for him to be able to learn more about the culture, and especially the language. Emanuel is also looking forward to studying aerospace engineering in college.

Jodie Kaberia
Duke Ellington School of the Arts

Jodie is in the instrumental department at her school and plays the Horn, Saxophone, and Trumpet. From living in Germany to taking French for a few years she has a pretty good understanding of western European languages. So she figured it was time to branch out past Latin script languages. She also learned a bit of Swahili from listening to her dad and online resources. Her favourite subject is math but non English languages come at a close second. She is a swimmer, defensive lacrosse player, and combat jujutsu student.

Dara Lira
School Without Walls High School

Dara enjoys drawing, watching anime/reading manga, and wants to be an ER Physician when she’s older. Growing up she spoke both English and Portuguese, which are both Latin based languages. Since they are both Latin based, she says she could make connections between those languages and others that are similar (French, Spanish, etc). When she heard Japanese for the first time, it was something completely new. She couldn’t make out what the characters in the anime were saying, her eyes were glued to the subtitles the whole time, which never really happened to that extent before. The more she delved the more curious she got, so she joined Japanese Tamago to hopefully get a better understanding of not only the Japanese language but its culture/customs as well. 

Akesh Mallia
School Without Walls High School

Akesh is interested in Japan because his family lives there and from the food to the culture, Akesh thinks it’s all-around a pretty cool country. In the future, he really likes airplanes so he wants to become an aeronautical engineer. Akesh’s hobbies include playing ultimate frisbee, biking, and watching baseball, Go Braves! And he also likes playing the trombone, doing policy debate, and watching lots of Netflix where he recently discovered Jojo which is now one of his favorite shows.

Camila Marryshow
School Without Walls High School

Apart from speaking Spanish and learning Japanese, she thoroughly enjoys playing the flute and keyboard for her school contemporary band. Her main interests consist of writing music, digital design, and writing short stories. Traveling with her family is a long-standing tradition, and she has traveled to other countries including St. Maarten, Venezuela, and Canada. Camila’s ultimate goal is to study abroad and immerse herself in Japanese culture by studying the language. She also appreciates listening to and playing Japanese funk and drawing manga.

Sakarrio Moore
E. L. Haynes Public Charter School

As unoriginal as it sounds, Sakarrio wants nothing more than to study and come to understand all that the world has to offer, from Astronomy to Zoology. A well-read bookworm, a polymath of unrelated history facts, and one who knows far too much of a particular sci-fi video game, he honestly joined Japanese Tamago on a whim and is eager to get the most out of the program as possible. If all goes according to plan, he’ll visit Japan, not as a wide-eyed, hopeless tourist, but as one who understands their language and culture.

Penelope Morris
School Without Walls High School

Penelope is drawn to Japan because of its culture and art. Her favorite subject in school is World History. Some of her hobbies include reading, drawing, baking (even if she isn’t very good at it), and playing violin. Although she doesn’t like most sports, she has been running cross country for six years. She loves learning languages, and is currently studying French, Latin, and Japanese. She would describe herself as curious, independent, and thoughtful, and quiet around people that she doesn’t know but open around friends. She is interested in international relations, linguistics, and psychology.

Hallie Munsat
Duke Ellington School of the Arts

Hallie enjoys doing many things during her free time including watching films, baking, debating, and crocheting. She has deep interests in fashion and filmmaking. While she likes all music, garage rock, samba, indie, and neo-soul tend to be her favorite genres. She’s OBSESSED with fall and good weather in general. She joined this program to communicate better with her Japanese friends in hopes of taking a semester in college to live in Japan.

Kaosi Nuel
Benjamin Banneker Academic High School

Kaosi enjoys technology, writing, art, debating, Jpop, Kpop, anime and alternative fashion. She started her fascination with East Asian culture, specifically Japan, through learning about anime from her older brother, which later branched off to Japanese youtubers and learning about the culture. She loves the Takashi Murakami flower, Avatar the Last Airbender, making new friends, coding, drawing, snacks, music and playing video games. She wants to attend college in Japan due to it being very technologically innovative. She plans to study computer science and business and plans to be an entrepreneur one day or a video game developer.

Zoie Richelieu
DC International School

Zoie is a bilingual speaker of English and Chinese. She is an active member of the DC Youth Orchestra Program (violinist for 12 years), Girls Scouts of America (12 years), and the National Honor Society. Some of her favorite hobbies are drawing, listening to music, watching Anime shows, eating good food and spending time with her friends. Zoie has visited China twice in the last few years and she has decided to major in International Studies in college. Asian culture has long been an attraction to Zoie, so she is very grateful and excited to be a part of the Japanese Tamago Program.

Zoe Roell
School Without Walls High School

Zoe likes to read, learn and snuggle with her dogs. She enjoys watching horror movies, as well as comedies. Zoe cooks, but prefers eating. She enjoys a good conversation, but also appreciates silence. Zoe’s interest in Japan stems from her mother, who lived in Japan for a year and has great stories about her time there. Zoe enjoys anime and manga. She also finds Japanese history and lore very interesting.  

D’Jhanir Smith
School Without Walls High School

Ohayou Gozaimasu! Watashi wa D’Jhanir-desu, yoroishiku onegai shimasu! Hello, D’Jhanir here. D’Jhanir is a Junior at School Without Walls who enjoys learning languages and politics. If you ever want to have a random discussion, he is your guy. D’Jhanir is also always up for a debate. We may agree about the same subject but he’ll gladly argue the other side.  D’Jhanir also loves Japanese culture from food, history, culture to food. He is really excited to practice Japanese with a lot of other passionate people!  D’Jhanir is also a Boy Scout who leads other scouts to excellency. When D’Jhanir grows up he would love to do something related to International Affairs, however, since he is indecisive he does not know if he should pursue International Affairs in Business or in Political Science/Law.

Owen Strasberg
Benjamin Banneker Academic High School

Owen enjoys playing sports during his free time, especially soccer. Aside from sports, he also really enjoys playing video games, since he loves being challenged and has lots of fun playing them too. At school, he is an active member of the robotics club, MOST club, poetry club, and electric car club. His favorite subject is probably science, since it’s interesting and he may want to search for a job in a related field in the future. His interest in Japan comes from friends he has made from there, but also being exposed to anime from a young age and an interest in their culture and history too. 

Anaya Sule
DC International School

Anaya has been learning Chinese for over the span of 13 years. She enjoys reading. It lets her insert herself into the story and different surroundings. She’s really cultivated by culture and how it connects within one another. Even though she isn’t a huge anime fan, she has always been interested in Japanese culture, food, identities, and languages. She really loves to cook and look at nature. It’s just a sense of calmness for her. She also loves to relax and watch TV all the time and decompress from school. She also enjoys helping others in need and giving advice to others.

Key’Mari Thompson 
Benjamin Banneker Academic High School

Key’Mari’s interest in Japan was majorly influenced by its pop culture, including video games, anime, and character goods like Sanrio. That interest went on to further expand to Japanese folklore, as well as the country’s beautiful scenery. This all ultimately led to her applying for Japanese Tamago so that she could broaden her knowledge of Japan, while simultaneously gaining new skills and experiences along the way. Key’Mari’s other interests include listening to kpop, playing games like Pokémon, and drawing. More pastimes she enjoys are sleeping, experimenting with makeup and collecting albums from her favorite artists. In the future she hopes to travel to many places (including, of course, Japan), while also pursuing a career in advertising.

Allyson Wallace
School Without Walls High School

Allyson has always been interested in Asian culture, and understands that languages are a key portion of learning about a culture. Ally is a dedicated Girl Scout, having earned her bronze and silver awards in the past eleven years, and is working towards her Gold award. She is a dedicated piano player, has joined her school’s stage band, and enjoys playing volleyball.  She enjoys seeing new places, traveling, eating good food. Her favorite subject in school is math, and plans on studying data science in college.  

Charles West
Phelps Ace High School

Chaz is a guard in basketball. He loves listening to a lot of genres of music with J. Cole being his favorite artist. He likes to play all types of video games, especially action games. He likes to watch anime and shonen jump animes are his favorite. In addition to Japanese, he wants to learn Spanish, Mandarin, and German. He is also very interested in Japanese culture and he hopes to learn more about their culture. 

Roniya Yeager
SEED Public Charter School

Roniya was born May 23, 2005 in Washington DC. She has maintained a 4.0 GPA all school year and she would like to keep it for the rest of the year. What motivates her to keep going is becoming a pediatrician when she gets older, because she wants to be able to take care of kids who still have a long life ahead of them. Her favorite subject is math, because although it may be hard, she loves learning about the new methods and she’s just always had an interest in math. Many of her classmates ask her for help in math class because she seem to be so good at it. Another thing that Roniya want to do is become an actress. Being an actress has always been a dream of hers because she loves watching movies and seeing how they do such a good job with their lines, and everything. She’s always been in the arts and music group, I  guess you could say, because she started cheering and dancing at 4 years old and didn’t stop until she was 12. She has a very big family. She has 8 brothers and sisters between both her mom and dad. She loves being a leader or being a host of something because she loves to make others happy. People describe her as calm, chill, fun to be around and very hardworking. She’s also courageous because no matter what, she will sacrifice herself for her family because she knows they would do the same for her.

Vladimir Zadorojny
Washington Latin Public Charter School  

In addition to Japanese taiko, Vladimir loves the films of Akira Kurosawa, recordings of BSO under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, and books by Haruki Murakami.  When not dreaming about visiting Japan, he enjoys reading about history (history of conflict in particular), playing his cello and banjo, participating in his school theater group, playing hockey, and re-watching Wes Anderson’s films. Vlad is known to be able to eat dozens of sake nigiri and watch otter videos for way too long.