“I grew up in Tunisia, the Land of Bom­boloni. Now I live in the Unit­ed States, the Land of Bagel.”

Jacque­line Semha was born to a lov­ing patri­ar­chal fam­i­ly in a tra­di­tion­al North African com­mu­ni­ty. Her life jour­ney from Tunisia, to France, Israel, Cana­da, and final­ly to the Unit­ed States, has repeat­ed­ly forced her to adjust to the great cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences along the way from the land of her child­hood to her ulti­mate adult­hood home.

Her tran­si­tion — from a learn­ing-hand­i­capped tomboy to a suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sion­al in a for­eign land with an unfa­mil­iar lan­guage and alien cus­toms and val­ues — was inspired by the words of her teacher, Madame Sab­ban: Si tu veux, tu peux,“If you want, you can.”