You may have seen Alexandra Dalferro behind Thai Market’s counter, taking orders and conversing in Thai with the waiters and cashiers. The Columbia College senior developed an interest in Thailand when a Thai exchange student stayed with her family in Massachusetts during high school, and has since studied abroad and conducted summer research there. She fell in love with everything from the people’s warmth to the language’s beauty. “And the fruit!” she said, laughing. “I think I could survive on a diet of Thai fruit.”
In Thailand, Dalferro conducted research for her thesis on migrant lottery ticket sellers in Bangkok. She also raised awareness for recycling by constructing a photography exhibit with members of a landfill community for an exhibition in the International Affairs Building.
Observing the landfill gave Dalferro new insight into waste, as well as the travails impoverished Thai had to endure.
“One time when I was staying with my family, I saw the father pull a head of cabbage out of the landfill, and we ended up having it for dinner later that night,” Dalferro said. She was even pressed into service, sickle in hand, as a rice harvester for needy communities.
Dalferro recently was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, one of only four such grants for Thailand. She will research the impact of a group of migrants from northeast Thailand that moved to Bangkok. After that, she plans to earn a graduate degree in anthropology or social work.
Dalferro has been able to immerse herself in a variety of Asian cultures at Columbia. “Her specialty is Thailand, but in our conversations I was repeatedly surprised to discover how widely read she is in 20th-century Japanese novels, for example, or how familiar she is with semi-obscure Chinese films,” David Atherton, Dalferro’s thesis advisor in the East Asian languages and cultures department, said. “She not only speaks Thai and Chinese, but happened to mention to me the other day that she is learning Indonesian on the side.”
While boiling silk worms by the hundreds to extract silk, encountering venomous centipedes and scorpions, or almost having a boat collapse from monsoon rains may not be the typical Columbia experience, Dalferro said living in New York makes it easy for anyone to get involved with an eclectic culture.
For two years, Dalferro mentored students who experienced domestic abuse in an Asian youth program. She also has taught English as a second language for four years, getting to know adult non-native English speakers, ranging from an 80-year-old Chinese woman to a former Peruvian army sniper who once asked her out.
She hasn’t always been this connected, though.
“My first two years here, I was really shy and I wish I’d been more outgoing, more fearless. Going abroad made me realize that beyond what you learn in a class, it’s so important to develop relationships.”
“She is kind, thoughtful, and spicily witty when she wants to be,” Armel Jacobs, CC ’09 and Dalferro’s roommate for two years, said. “Sometimes people confuse her unassuming nature for shyness, but in reality she just moves along her relationship with others at her own pace.”