Bonjour, dear listeners. In many countries around the world, March is Women's History Month.

To mark the occasion, the Duolingo French podcast is revisiting some of our favorite stories

from women trailblazers across the Francophone world. Today we'll hear an episode from September

2020 featuring a bold journalist from Paris. Her name is Linland Dau. Linland grew up in

France in a family of Vietnamese immigrants. As a child, she was quiet and tried to keep a low

profile even when she encountered anti-Asian racism. But things changed after she became a journalist.

Keep listening to find out how. And stay tuned at the end of the episode for an update from Linland.

Also, a quick note before we begin, today's episode deals with racism and in order for our

narrator to share her story fully, she brings up a few derogatory terms that she herself encountered.

Now onto the episode. In the leafy residential Paris suburb where Linland

Dau grew up, there weren't many other Vietnamese families like hers around. At school, Linland was one of

the only Asian kids. She was often the butt of school yard jokes.

She mocked at her eyes. When she arrived, I didn't say anything. I was like if it didn't bother me.

But inside, it hurt me.

In my family, we didn't talk much about our feelings. But parents never asked me,

how did it go with your class' cameras? For my parents, the most important thing was to have good

notes at school. Linland's parents were from Vietnam, a former French colony. They had lived through

the Vietnam War, then immigrated to France as refugees. When Linland was growing up, her parents

often told her how grateful they were to France for taking them in and for offering free public

education to their children. My parents taught me to stop a good Frenchman. For me,

that means to me, to conform to others. Not to make me remark. So, I was always

saying, I didn't want to take the attention. If we said something wrong, I didn't answer anything.

...