This week’s Joy Beat celebrates academic achievement and the ability to learn new languages.
Sanie Joseph, a 2026 valedictorian at New Mission High School, is a recipient of Massachusetts’ State Seal of Biliteracy, a distinction awarded for proficiency in English and another language. She joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about perseverance and what it was like to learn a new language and get accepted to Dartmouth College. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: Take us back to when you first came to the U.S. at 15 from Haiti. What do you remember most from that transition? What struck you then?…