Year: Freshman
Major: Business Administration – Marketing & Information Systems
Hometown: Kirkland, Washington
Fun fact: I met Pitbull once at a restaurant and the first thing he said to me was “oooh you smell good mamacita”
Leadership practice:
I participated in the Hoa Khoi Lien Truong Vietnamese Cultural Pageant this year. The Vietnamese Student Association holds this pageant every 2 years. As a contestant I attended semiweekly practices, rehearsals, and participated in community service events. Additionally, though optional, I gained sponsors and donors to donate to the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, an organization based in Hanoi, Vietnam that serves to help children escape the poverty cycle and demanded slave labor by providing them with a home, stable living conditions, and opportunities for higher education. The main reason I decided to take this on as my leadership practice is because I had felt left out of my own Vietnamese culture. My biggest fear is that my culture will die after my generation because I never knew much growing up or even knew how to speak Vietnamese for that matter. Doing this pageant taught me to realize, on my own, how much I value my culture and how much I want to start embracing it. It exposed me to the beauty of my heritage and encouraged me to get more involved here on out. I think the main leadership takeaway is that it is never too late to get involved with something that you want to learn more about, even if it means going out of your comfort zone. I hesitated for a long time when debating whether or not to do this pageant because I knew I would be the most Americanized one there. My experience here, however, just shows me how much taking a risk can pay off. I had the time of my life participating in this pageant and found a new community that makes me finally feel a part of the Vietnamese culture.