Episode 44: Language & Cultural Identity - Interview with Urmi Hossain

In this episode, I share a fascinating and wonderful chat I had with Urmi Hossain, a polyglot, author, YouTuber, and a woman empowering and inspiring others. Urmi shares her history of language learning, which began in childhood as she grew up in Italy with Bengali heritage. She tells of growing up in Sicily, speaking Bengali at home and Italian in the community and how she often felt in between worlds, neither fully Italian nor fully Bengali. Urmi takes us through her path toward realization that she doesn’t have to choose between cultures and which one she identifies with, and that, in fact, she is of both – Italian by birth and Bengali by blood.

In this chat, we get to hear about Urmi’s journey through other languages, as well, about the challenges she faced moving to Montreal as a French speaker, and about her passion for Spanish. You will hear the love for Spanish in her voice as she takes us through her travel experiences in Mexico and the Dominican Republic! It was such a pleasure to have this chat with Urmi and be given the honor of hearing her personal story of self- and cultural identity and the role languages have played in that. I hope you enjoy her stories as much as I did, and make sure you check out her work linked below.

Find Urmi's Work Here:
Book: Discovering Your Identity: A Rebirth from Interracial Struggle
Blog: My Ways, a female-focused platform to empower girls and women to take control of every aspect of their lives
Youtube channel: Urmi Hossain, a channel about study methods for the CFA, career, language learning, and personal growth

Where to find me:
Love, Joy, and Languages Blog
All podcast episodes can be found here.
Instagram: @love.joyandlanguages
Twitter: @LoveJoy_Lang