World Citizenship

Photo courtesy of Kara Auvray

If you talk to sophomore Kara Auvray, she may say she misses the Caribbean lifestyle on the French island of Guadeloupe more than anything. She misses her morning strolls to the bakery down the street to get her pain au chocolat with her Trinidadian mother, Antonnya, and Guadeloupean father, Stéphane.

She misses the festive Trinidadian Carnival parades and authentic curry. She misses speaking her first language, French, to any passerby on the sandy beaches of Guadeloupe.

Despite all this, Kara wouldn’t trade her grey house with white shutters in Prairie Village for anything. Instead of focusing on the negative, she’s learned to focus on the positive: how her unique upbringing has given her invaluable experiences that have sparked a passion in international relations.

Kara holds citizenship in three countries: Trinidad and Tobago, France and the United States. Due to her father’s professional soccer career, Kara’s childhood was filled with multiple moves across France, such as from Vannes to Nîmes in 2009. His career eventually landed the Auvray family in Kansas in 2010 after Stéphane was invited to play for Sporting Kansas City.

Though Kara has lived in Kansas since 2010, she still makes frequent visits to Trinidad to celebrate Carnival, as well as to her father’s home of Guadeloupe.

“Sometimes when you spend many years in the same system and the same culture you seem to have one opinion about things, whereas when you get to travel around the world, you realize that it’s not about being right or wrong,” Stéphane said. “It’s about the way people see things and you realize it’s just a matter of perspective.”

Kara’s experiences in different cultures has inspired an interest in international relations, which is a broad field that generally deals with the way countries interact with each other. Though she is not sure what position she wishes to hold, Kara has considered working towards becoming a foreign service officer or diplomat for France.

Her passion began to develop as she matured from a young science fiction book worm to a more knowledgeable, global citizen who stays up-to-date through the BBC World News App. As Kara grew older, she began to realize and understand the evident differences in French and American society.

Since she isn’t visiting different countries for the resorts and tourist attractions, but experiencing them as whole, she’s been able to get a taste of what it’s like for the people of the nation. Her time in the U.S. has exposed her to the everyday problems and fears Americans face.

On the Monday morning following the Las Vegas shooting, Kara didn’t want to get out of bed. After seeing the notification of the attack on her phone, she was in shock to hear that yet another mass shooting took 58 innocent lives. Gun violence is just one of the societal issues she has been exposed to in the U.S.

Kara has also analyzed the differences in the U.S. election processes compared to France, and has taken note of the fact that free health care is not available in the U.S. like it is in France. In addition to these controversies in the U.S., she also came to realize the tension and discrimination that surrounds immigration.

As an immigrant and minority herself, these problems have not gone unnoticed. The controversies around immigration, especially those brought to light through the most recent presidential election, have helped inspire a focus on human rights and immigration.

Kara remembers her father studying for the citizenship test, she remembers his meetings with their lawyer. Though their immigration experience was relatively simple because of the fact that Sporting KC was recruiting Stéphane, Kara is aware that this is not the case for many hopeful immigrants and refugees.

“As I get older and more involved and well-read, and I see all of the current problems that immigrants are facing, it has made me realize how really passionate and interested I am about it [human rights], because it’s a process that I went through,” Kara said.

Since her move from Blue Valley Southwest to East this year for the International Baccalaureate Program, Kara has found her niche through debate and clubs like Coalition and Diversity and Inclusion Club. Through these clubs and her international relations class she took last semester, she has been able to even further her knowledge in global and social issues.

According to international relations teacher David Muhammad, Kara’s international background allowed her to bring an authentic perspective to class discussions concerning current issues like the Syrian and North Korean conflicts.

“When she spoke, kids listened,” Muhammad said. “She is socially aware and has facts to back up her knowledge, so her intellect is very high, and she’s aware of her background, so that makes even more of an impact.”

According to Muhammed, it’s this willingness to understand the history and background of countries she’s visited and her strong will to be socially aware that sets her apart from other students. Though her unique upbringing and ethnic background planted the seed for her interest in international relations, he believes these traits, along with her open-mindedness, have put her even further on the path to success in the field.

As for her aspirations in international relations, Kara only has one goal: to help improve the problems all people are facing in the world today, especially minorities and immigrants.

“I just feel like there’s a lot of discrimination that is happening at this moment, and I definitely don’t think I can solve it, but if I can help ameliorate the lifestyles or the lives of these people, then that’s good enough for me,” Kara said.

Until she can make an impact globally, Kara is happy in her life she has built at East, one that is open to her perspective and continues to foster her ideas and aspirations – even if it’s thousands of miles away from her Caribbean and French roots.