“If I wear national clothes, they call me a gypsy” — Juhaina Lango, a model girl who can speak Uzbek
Afro-Uzbek model girl Juhayna Lango opened up in the “Omon-omon” program: she talked about her childhood, unexpected turns in her parents’ story, and her dream of Uzbek cinema.
“I have no connection to Arabs at all”
Juhayna was born in Oman, but she says “I’m not Arab”: only her name is Arabic. Her father is Nigerian, her mother is from Bukhara, a mixed Uzbek-Tatar background. “I don’t let anyone change my name, only my grandmother calls me Juju,” she said.
“My dad saw my mom in Tashkent and fell in love”
When her father came to Tashkent as a legionnaire football player, he met her mother. Despite the families’ opposition, her mother left with her father. Now Juhayna has almost no contact with her father: “I have talked on the phone, but I have not seen him in real life.”
Grew up in Navoi, summers in Bukhara
She grew up in Navoi, and spent her vacations in Bukhara. Even though she studied at a Russian school, she mentioned that she got an “A” in Uzbek. She speaks Uzbek, Russian, English, and Turkish fluently, and knows a little Tajik as well.
“If I wear national clothes, they misunderstand me”
The most impactful part was this: “Since childhood I am dark-skinned. If I wear national clothes, they think I am a gypsy,” Juhayna said. For this reason, she did not hide that she rarely wears national outfits.
Higher education and a cinema dream
She entered the University of Foreign Languages in Samarkand, but during quarantine she had to work and stopped studying. “Anyway, one day I will get a diploma,” she says. Her biggest dream is to play a role in Uzbek films. There was an invitation to the “African bride” project, but the timing did not work out.
Read “Zamin” on Telegram!
