Frenish is Agnes Irwin’s modern language and culture publication. Run by coheads Eliana Baron-Hionis (‘21) and Olivia Heldring (‘22), Frenish challenges students to practice their skills by writing about current events, personal experiences, and the world around them in a language other than their native tongue. One common misconception about Frenish is that we only publish articles in French and Spanish. While it is true that the majority of our writers write in French and Spanish, we have had many students write in Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, and more! The majority of Frenish members publish articles, but we also publish creative works like poems, stories, and recipes!
The mission of Frenish is to highlight the diversity of language in our community and to raise awareness about current events happening beyond the AIS bubble. Our process begins at the beginning of each season with theme brainstorming. During these meetings, Frenish writers discuss and choose a theme that we think will inspire articles that expose our readers to worldly issues that they may not have heard of. This fall, our theme was “Global Elections and Politics.” We chose this theme because, at the time, most students at AIS were so caught up in the drama of the American presidential election that they were not necessarily updated on the other important changes in leadership positions across the world. We wrote articles about the attempt to overthrow the socialist dictator in Venezuela, the presidential election system in India, and more!
For our winter articles, we have decided to pursue two themes: teacher interviews and the topic of global COVID-19 relief. Our decision to interview teachers and faculty is something we haven’t done before and it has been a huge success! We have reached out to all the AIS faculty and asked if anyone had an interesting life story that related to languages or culture! We have received dozens of responses from faculty members who grew up overseas, speak many languages, or have traveled or lived abroad. AIS students spend so much time with our faculty, but often know very little about their backstory. We wanted to learn more about them and share with the AIS community! These interview articles will be published soon and are a great way to learn more about your favorite teachers and all their world experiences! Other Frenish members this season have written about the effects of COVID-19 and how other countries have handled the pandemic. We often find ourselves so wrapped up in COVID-19 numbers in our area or country that we forget that some countries are worse off than the United States or have eradicated the virus completely!
Frenish’s main goal is to reach out to the community and educate on the importance of global issues and events. We live in a day and age where anyone has access to information about virtually anything, happening anywhere, so let’s take advantage of that privilege and learn about other countries and other peoples!
