Saloni Kanani ‘22 is an international student from Shanghai, majoring in theatre arts and psychology here at LMU. Kanani explains, “I was born in Taiwan, I moved to Shanghai when I was three-years-old, and I’ve lived there ever since. But, I’m ethnically Indian.” On-campus, she’s the entertainment and production chair for the South Asian Student Association and was also in the Haunting of Hannon.
Kanani chose to come to LMU because she was looking for schools with a good theatre program. “I also wanted a big city, so it was either New York or LA, and [she] actually had one of the representatives from LMU come to [her] school.” Now that Kanani is here, her favorite parts of LMU are “the people and the size because it’s not too big and it’s not small,” said Kanani. “You’ll bump into someone while walking to class, and everyone’s really friendly.”
The people who have had the most significant impact on her time here are her friends, “I’ve shared so many different experiences with them,” said Kanani. “They are people I never thought I’d be friends with, and I would never have met them otherwise. They’ve really shaped my years here at LMU.“
For Kanani, being a global citizen means, “to be inclusive of every culture and difference,” said Kanani. and “It’s not just your nationality or your race, but what makes you unique and what makes you similar to someone.” It’s a perspective that she hopes the LMU student body would continue to use to expand their knowledge of, especially when it comes to LMU’s international students. “I wish they could be more open to hearing about what it’s like and learn more about it,” said Kanani. “It helps just to know that it’s difficult for international students to live so far from home and try to adjust.”
“Being an international student, growing up somewhere, being from a different ethnicity, moving somewhere else now has made me a true global citizen,” said Kanani. “Living a life of purpose is trying to find a purpose with each class, and honestly, I have found something valuable in each thing I’ve been doing here.”
To learn more about programs and resources available for International Students at LMU, visit the Office for International Students and Scholars website.
By: Tygre Patchell-Evans