Spotlight on Yoakum ISD’s foreign exchange students

Yoakum ISD has four foreign exchange students this year.

They are Emmanuel Maria De Angelis from Italy, Huyn “Hannah” Nguyen from Vietnam, Mar Sierra Martinez from Spain, and Marie Weber from Germany, and they visited recently with the newspaper, sharing their unique perspectives and voices of their time here in Yoakum and what they hope to bring back home to their respective countries from this experience.

All but Weber detailed the ins and outs of adjusting to life here in Texas.

Nguyen has been living in Yoakum for two months, and she said she’s received a lot of support from the community.

“Everyone has been very friendly, and all the students know that I’m an exchange student. It’s been awesome,” Nguyen said. “I’m currently learning English and I’m getting better each day. Living here has taught me how to be independent. I’m really lucky that I have a beloved host mom and host dad, they support me a lot.”

For De Angelis, he is enjoying the new culture of small-town life.

“I have two adult sisters and one little brother. I’m really enjoying the atmosphere with my host family,” De Angelis said. “I came here because I wanted to try a new experience and I want each person here to learn more about my culture.”

Martinez has been here for a month. Before this, she was an exchange student in the Woodlands and she’s really enjoying the rural landscape of Yoakum.

“I’m from a town that’s 20 minutes from Barcelona in Spain,” Martinez said. “It’s been a real pleasure to be here in Yoakum.”

A common thread among the foreign exchange students was that school is a vastly different experience here in Texas as compared to what they were accustomed to back home.

“I think here in Yoakum is easier and better than what we have, living in Italy,” De Angelis said. “It’s different here because, in Italy, we just have one classroom with all the same classmates in all five years in high school. In Yoakum, we have different classes every period and there’s only four years of high school. There is a downside, as here it is more difficult to make friends. You can know everyone here, but you don’t really know everybody.”

The classroom environment in Vietnam is quite similar to those found in Italy, so it’s been something of an adjustment for Nguyen as well.

“One thing about living in Yoakum is that there is less hustle and bustle,” Nguyen said. “In my home city, it is very hectic. I can definitely feel the peace when I live here in Yoakum, everything is slow and relaxing that I really feel I can enjoy the atmosphere here easier. But everyone here is very friendly. When I go to school, people will ask how my day is here and it brings me joy.”

In Spain, Martinez said you basically also spend all your time in the same class, so she says she enjoys the variety here that Yoakum ISD has to offer.

“What’s interesting about school life in Spain is that Junior and Senior year is not mandatory, you can decide if you want to pursue those grades,” Martinez said. “At this school, it is easier. There’s less homework and you have time to do stuff that you like, such as watching movies or spending time with the family.”

Nguyen’s host parent, Cody Westergren, is the theater teacher at Yoakum High School and Nguyen has already signed up for extracurricular.

“I’ve joined One Act Play with Cody as my teacher and I’m so proud,” Nguyen said. “We’ve already started on rehearsals, and it has been awesome so far.”

In his short stay, De Angelis has already visited some of the sights in Texas outside of Yoakum.

“I’ve been to San Antonio twice with my previous host dad,” De Angelis said. “I’ve been to the Riverwalk already and it was great, but I much prefer Austin.”

Each student has had a bit of a culture shock with some of the foods found here in Yoakum.

“My absolute favorite food here is Spanish rice, I really love it,” Nguyen said. “I really love Mexican food, but I would love to introduce Vietnamese cuisines to the people here.”

For Martinez, she was shocked at how different the fast-food chains are here.

“It’s very different. There’s a lot more fast-food chains here. In Spain, we only have McDonalds and Burger King,” Martinez said. “I’ve already been to Whataburger, and I was shocked at how huge the burger is! I was also shocked at how big the drink sizes are here.”

Nguyen has enjoyed the city of Yoakum. She’s already been to the Grand Theater with her host parents. She also likes the serene rural landscapes found around Yoakum.

“One strange thing here is that there’s a lot of stop signs. I wondered to myself, why do we need to stop when there’s no traffic on the street,” Nguyen said. “Instead of stop signs, we only have traffic lights in my country.”

One thing they all agreed on was, much like the saying goes, everything here in Texas really is bigger.

“I’ve never seen a truck before. We don’t have those in my country,” De Angelis said.

All of the students are looking forward to the future.

De Angelis wants to attend a university in Italy and study in business and economics.

When Martinez returns to Spain, she will do another year of school and she wants to study business law. She hopes to go to University in Denmark.

Nguyen wants to study international business here in the United States, and she aims to go to Texas A&M.

Cody Westergren and Elizabeth Chilek are area representatives to the International Student Exchange (ISE) Program, and they said ISE is looking for more host parents in the area.