Sara Neagu

Sara Neagu speaks English as her second language.

{mosads}The Californian is equally comfortable talking in Romanian, her parents’ native tongue.

“As kids we only spoke Romanian,” said Neagu, a legislative assistant for the National Corn Growers Association. “When I went to school I was actually in an English as a second language class.

The Romanian language’s complexity still fascinates her.

“It sounds like Spanish and Portuguese,” she said. “It has a little French and Italian too. At some points it sounds Slavic. We’re closest to the Latin language base.”

Neagu’s parents emigrated from Eastern Europe during the Carter administration.

“Romanians have a lot of pride in their country,” she said. “We’re a really small community.”

“It would be awesome to see a Romanian member of Congress,” Neagu quipped.

— Mark Hensch