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JOSE ESPARZA: So my
name is Jose Esparza.

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I'm a junior in
mathematics and economics.

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My focus is
development economics,

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so I got to know Michel's--

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Professor DeGraff's
work, because

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of what he does with the
MIT Haiti initiative.

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And the reason I
took this course

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is because I thought that his
efforts were very important,

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and that it was an opportunity
to improve the world

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and I wanted to hear
more of what he did,

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and the theory of why
he does what he does.

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After taking this
course, my perspective

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of language and
identity changed,

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in that now I was able
to see the connection

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between the languages we
speak, but also how that

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ties into cultures, in
general, and more importantly

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to politics.

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And in some sense, we can see
a lot of the big things that

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happen in society, like
neocolonialism, or the effects

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of institutions-- a
lot of these things,

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although they might be
cloudy in some sort,

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language is a good
way to view the world.

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One of the first
essays was to look

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our own life, or a biography
through the lens of language.

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And in studying how institutions
interact with each other

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through the sense of
language opens up either

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how some cultures are
not taken as seriously

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as others, how it tells
you about the history

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about the world.

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And it taught me to see
language as something

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that ties a lot of things
about humans together.

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And it was just a different
way to look at the world.