Where Faith, Arabic, and Khmer Meet

On her first day of class as a freshman at BYU, Rachel Gammon (Middle East Studies, Arabic ’27) sat down in an Arabic 101 class and fell in love with the language. She had no prior experience with Arabic, but she felt drawn to it as she studied. Gammon wasn’t quite sure how Arabic fit into her plans for life—at least until recently. Now a senior, Gammon has been conducting research with a Humanities Undergraduate Mentoring (HUM) Grant, an experience that has helped her find her purpose behind studying language.

Shortly after taking her first Arabic class, Gammon paused her studies at BYU to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cambodia. She had plenty of time to reflect on her plans while serving. After lots of prayer, she decided to double major in Middle East Studies and Arabic. Gammon says she felt “this really unexplainable love for the Arabic language.” Although she still wasn’t completely sure where the feeling came from and how she would use Arabic, she felt inspired to continue her studies.

Photo courtesy of Rachel Gammon

Gammon has since worked her way up to an advanced level of Arabic. She participated in study abroad programs in Morocco and worked as a teaching assistant for beginning and intermediate Arabic students. Her experiences showed her that she enjoyed working with students, and she began considering graduate school. In 2025, Gammon spoke with a professor who suggested she apply for a HUM Grant. Since most graduate programs are research heavy, a HUM Grant would allow her to see what conducting her own research might look like. Gammon only had a week before the HUM Grant application was due, but she pulled together a proposal for a project on faith communities and second language learning with the help of Seth McCombie, an Arabic professor.

The project stemmed from Gammon’s own experiences with language learning. Studying both Arabic in her classes at BYU and Khmer on her mission in Cambodia showed Gammon the role institutions play in supporting language learners. As an Arabic student, BYU provided Gammon access to resources and support from professors, and as a missionary, the Church provided her with language training and support from leaders. She wanted to research the experience of immigrants in the United States and whether being involved in a faith community would “take some of those supporting roles” that institutions normally play.

To find out, Gammon used her Arabic and Khmer abilities to interview Arab and Cambodian women throughout Utah about their experiences learning English as new immigrants.

Her findings proved that faith communities do have a positive impact on an immigrant’s ability to learn English. For example, one Latter-day Saint immigrant mentioned her calling as a Sunday school teacher in her English-speaking congregation. Gammon says the calling “became a motivation for the woman to practice her English,” something she might not have had if she weren’t involved in a faith community. Teaching Sunday school created an opportunity for the woman to get real-world practice using English. Gammon says, “She also talked about believing that God would help her do it.” The woman believed that God was aware of her and would magnify her ability to teach others in her second language, which also provided motivation to practice.

Photo courtesy of Rachel Gammon

Many of the women also talked about how faith communities fill the need to connect with others. One Muslim woman told Gammon how attending a Latter-day Saint congregation, despite it being a different religion from hers, was a way for her to get to know others while practicing her English. Gammon says that because most faith communities gather together often, the Latter-day Saint congregation became a place for the Muslim woman to feel a part of a community in her new country.

Gammon’s research also found that faith communities can help preserve the culture of immigrants. For some, learning English is less important than passing down their native Arabic or Khmer language. Rather than attending English-speaking congregations, some have found faith communities that use their native languages. Several Cambodian women, for example, choose to attend a Khmer-speaking congregation because “they want their children to grow up speaking Khmer,” says Gammon. In these cases, faith communities still have an impact—but instead of supporting immigrants in learning English, they support their children in learning their native language.

Gammon began her HUM Grant project hoping it would show her what real-world research would be like. The experience helped Gammon feel sure of her interest in graduate school, and she plans to apply to programs this fall.

Photo courtesy of Rachel Gammon

Besides finding her next steps, Gammon also enjoyed getting to hear the stories of the immigrant women she spoke with throughout the project. Talking with them about the impact faith has had on their lives strengthened her own faith. One woman described language as a bridge. For these immigrants, learning English is the bridge that connects them to their new country. Gammon began reflecting on how the languages she’s learned have also been like a bridge. She realized that through language, she can connect with others, and through others, she comes to sees God.

That experience helped Gammon find a deeper purpose in her study of Arabic. Though she originally worried where her interest in Arabic could take her, her research insights helped her see that her love of the language could take her to graduate school and could even become “a way to connect with God.”

Humanities majors can learn more about and apply for a HUM Grant on the Humanities Undergraduate Mentoring Grants website.