There is a strangeness to Jacques Jean “JJ” Tezio’s residence on Osage Street beyond the kind usually embodied by the colorful row houses of West Philadelphia. This is reflected in the year-round Christmas lights strung across the narrow winding staircase and above the table, which, along with a small lamp, are the only source of light in the dark wood dining room. Deep shadows draw the faces of the evening guests. Brows furrowed, eyes sparkled, and visitors exchanged words and thick cooking pots. Somehow, I found myself part of a fortnightly tradition that’s almost as old as me – Tizio’s French Soirees.
The difference on the table before us is huge and delicious. Each hand helps lower the huge pot of vegetable soup that has just been prepared onto the table, which is well complemented by Tiziou’s walnut-stuffed loaves of bread and cubes of shredded cheese in various shades of orange. The secret ingredient to the main course? A sprinkle of crushed insects, of course.
Credit: Noah Eggerts
“The original idea was to call it ‘Francais et Fromage,’” explains Tizio. “When I was living with my former housemate, we had the idea of hosting a few events here and there, and now it’s more regular.”
Tizio refers to his dinners being held entirely in French, where he welcomes guests from all over Philadelphia and even the world. The concept of breaking bread to bring people together is certainly not new, nor is gaining language skills through immersion in food and community. However, it is the episodic cohesion – the seamless merging of these two conditions – in Osage Evenings that is executed to an enviable degree.
Tiziou’s dinners are his own idea, although different in many ways from the “language tables” phenomenon, and are a great way to practice those skills in an environment that isn’t necessarily a classroom or club. During the short time I spend attending these language tables, I strike up conversations with native speakers, budding multilinguals, and even supportive friends who tag along over some homemade soup and a laugh. There is representation from more than a dozen countries, from Ghana to Romania. The children enthusiastically listen to Tiziou about their favorite cartoon as he mixes vegetables in the kitchen. An old man passes along his latest treasured book, a chapter about these soirées from a larger work about his experiences in America. A red-lipped woman with sharp hair passes from the dining room into the kitchen, where I am sitting with another guest. In epic West Philly style, she spends several minutes searching for fertilizer for her orange peel.
“About half the crew are loyal regulars, and half the crew comes in every now and then, or someone new, or someone who hasn’t been in for eight months and suddenly they come back,” Tizio explains to me. Carrying their own contributions to the table, from cornbread to cabernet, participants come as they please with whatever they desire, as long as they bring with them a cheerful attitude and a willingness to try.
Incredibly, some of the dinner guests who are quickly welcomed to the table, and welcomed like old friends, meet Tiziou for the first time, having heard about the soirees through the grapevine. There is no single judgmental view, no criticism masquerading as helpful observation.
Credit: Noah Eggerts
Tiziou was refreshing in his description of the event, portraying it more as a last-minute group dinner party than a long-standing community tradition. “It’s great for people to be able to share a meal together,” he says. “Making it a very regular offering made it something people could look forward to. That’s all it is, really. And very regular it is. One of the guests, Christian, told me offhandedly over his bowl of soup that he’d been making it on and off for about A decade. When I mentioned this to Tezio, he sat and stared blankly at me for a moment, a smile spreading across his face. “Is that possible? I think, maybe. Has it really been that long?”
Originally from Washington, D.C., Tizio attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002. He’s stuck around ever since, saying simply: “Philadelphia felt like home the moment I got here.” A Francophone by birth, he found himself out of practice in his native language and far from home in his emerging adulthood. But what persisted was Tizio’s determination not only to hold on to his French language, but also to enrich it.
“I was used [French] Often in a family context, but it’s essential around the dinner table. “If I start trying to talk about public art or community organizing, I don’t always have the vocabulary,” he says.
Isabelle Wozniak, one of the event’s attendees, heard about the dinner through her partner. Like Tizio, Wozniak comes from a French-speaking home. “Because of my daily life, I don’t really have opportunities to practice [the language]. I only came here as a way to reconnect with… [my childhood and identity]says Wozniak.
This is a familiar feeling to many Penn students. With the number of international students in the Class of 27 spanning 97 countries and the presence of (albeit inconsistent) language requirements, it is entirely plausible that the majority of the undergraduate student body would be composed of multilingual students. There is no shortage of groups that cater to these diverse linguistic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds on campus, and there are as many non-English speaking people on campus as friend groups speak their native language. However, outside these protective bubbles, English is the bridge between students, allowing us to communicate with each other.
Our lively times in the city and the memories we make throughout our years in Pennsylvania are preserved in the language of our thoughts, in conversation with our peers, and forcibly translated into the English word. We are assessed academically through essays and exams, and as a result we find ourselves forced to do our hardest thinking in English.
“I think part of this is because the experiences and stories we experience every day at Penn are all in English. We have a natural tendency to retell these stories in English,” says Tony Tian (C,E ’27), who speaks French and Mandarin in addition to English. “In which we live.” So, our mother tongues reluctantly take a backseat. In our quest for knowledge, and the practical necessity of doing so in the common language, other languages are put on hold and, in some cases, relegated to their adolescent forms.
Both Tzio and Wozniak expressed their desire to be able to talk about their deepest interests in their shared mother tongue. French evenings emerged as a potential solution, as Tézio provided a homely space that was non-intimidating to her guests, allowing for an openness that drew the language away from those attending.
While the number of Tiziou’s guests skews more toward near-fluent speakers than learners—she estimates the split is about 80/20—a fair number are still working toward proficiency from scratch. Apparently Christian is not a native French speaker at all. “People have ranges of abilities. “Tonight… I might be the worst,” he exclaimed happily, immediately bursting into a fit of laughter. “Everyone says that learning a language as you get older gets harder. This is true because of our environment, not because of our brains.
Regardless of whether or not there is scientific truth to this feeling, it is impossible to deny the influence of the French evening environment on those who gathered. Because he had a “really bad relationship” with his high school French teacher, Christian failed his introductory language class, and didn’t take it up again until many years later, after “travelling, being in Ghana, and being exposed to real internationalism.” On his second attempt, Christian’s newfound devotion to language learning propelled him quickly toward success. He worked with free language programs like Duolingo and HelloTalk, as well as attending language tables at Tiziou.
“I also think that being an African-American person is out of touch with that part of myself in a way. This is really like a way to reclaim that. But that’s also very important, I think, because I saw how it affected people when I tried to speak their language,” he explains. “You brought joy.”
Credit: Noah Eggerts
Tiziou’s attitude is also a contributing factor. He seems completely unfazed by the vulnerability of presenting his own house in its unfiltered state, and encouraging others to experience it the way he does. He attributes his openness in his adult life to his early experiences and influences, such as photographing independent events and house concerts, as well as the frequent dinner parties hosted at his childhood home.
A prominent figure in the West Philadelphia social scene who, in his words, “[likes] To play the role of community resource connector,” Tiziou takes it upon himself to provide for his neighbors by devising events of all kinds. He speaks with an enthusiasm for organizing, as if this were his duty since birth. Given the size and diversity of the crowd he adores, both inside and outside the dining room, and the fact that the first unifying question On the table between any two strangers is “How do you know JJ?”, which is completely believable.
It feels too good to be true – the way he explains all his circumstances as a gift, allowing him to be of service. His house is large because it is meant to be filled with people, “open and designed to host.” He lives alone so he can put his energy into “nurturing the community” and creating new families by bringing together strangers with common interests. “There’s at least one kid in England now who probably has a photo of the moment when the parents met, because it was one of the concerts I hosted at the house when I lived next door,” he adds nonchalantly, as if matchmaking at his house were a regular occurrence. There is a simple, contagious beauty in Tiziou’s ability to turn his hobbies into a mission he wholeheartedly believes in.
There are language tables at the University of Pennsylvania as well. Kings Court English College House, home of the Perspectives in Humanities program community, has a similar mission of protecting and promoting the language. Chinese, Spanish, and French-speaking students meet three times a week on their own days in the private dining room to share a meal and practice speaking another language. However, these sessions do not appear to be particularly popular among students, given their low attendance rates, which range in the single digits. Usually after a few minutes the conversation quickly turns to English.
“I think it is difficult to maintain a French-speaking environment through the KCECH French schedule because there is such a wide range of language familiarity that leads to people attending the French schedules,” adds Tony, a student coordinator for KCECH’s French schedules. Different purposes. The person who has more experience with French, has spoken it at home, or learned it at school, may be there to practice, while others who are less experienced, or who are just starting to learn, are there to actually learn.
Christian offers a similar explanation. “You don’t have to know any French to come here. You’ll get frustrated in the end. You get to that point, and you say, ‘I’m so nervous, I don’t want to mess it up.’ But here, there’s less pressure. “The perfect place to experience simple failure.”
Pennsylvania has countless communities, but very few of them are informal in their behavior, meaning there is almost no place to experience simple failure. We stay in our lanes, bound by our fears. We exaggerate the consequences of making mistakes because we judge ourselves too harshly for what we perceive as failure. Most importantly, the French nightlife in Tizio is not characterized by its openness, nor even by the strong family community it has built among the people. It’s the magical ease, the relaxation that comes with entering a room of people who aren’t afraid to fall.