Leo Fleury

Hi! I’m Leo Fleury, a student at UGA, and I am originally from Brazil. I have dual citizenship because I was born in Gwinnett, Georgia, however I moved to Jundiaí, São Paulo around a year after I was born. I spent most of my childhood there, eventually moving to Atlanta when I was ten. A question I get a lot when I tell people this is about whether I experienced a lot of culture shock at first, and surprisingly I felt like I didn’t at first. It’s probably because I was young and was only worried about playing outside and collecting pokemon cards, which is what most people my age were also doing in the US. However, now that I’m older not only can I look back and realize how different things were, I now experience a bit of culture shock whenever I go back to Brazil to visit family and friends. Everyday interactions, the way friendships are formed, family values, and even simple things like the way people greet each other stand out to me in a way they didn’t when I was younger. It’s interesting because when I was younger, I blended in so easily in both countries, but now that I’m older I can clearly see the contrasts in culture, lifestyle, and even priorities.