Today we’d like to introduce you to Van Nguyen.
Van, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My name is Van Nguyen and I just graduated from the Houston Academy for International Studies. I will attend Bryn Mawr College in the fall on the Posse scholarship, which is a four-year full-tuition scholarship. I am also an intern at the Asia Society Texas Center, as well as an HISD intern. At Asia Society, I have completed various projects such as workshop lesson plans and organized different activities for students. However, my main project is our teen council. I was a co-developer of this project with Taia Bush, who has interviewed with Voyage before and I am the current facilitator. The teen council’s mission to create a space for students to have conversations around identity.
For our first year project due to the current social situations, we are starting a journaling series based on different prompts that we come up with that fall under criteria that the council is interested in. When we are able to meet in person safely, we would love to start our rice round table discussions. We chose rice as that is a staple food in many cultures and is based on the idea that the best conversations are had around the dinner table, one of the things that I learned while I was studying abroad in China. One of my goals for the teen council is to introduce an Asian American voice to these spaces. Having moved around a lot, I have struggled to find a place that I fit into and also found myself being a spokesperson for my community. However, with the teen council, I would like to create a space where Asian Americans who I have seen tend to stick to themselves to meet other people and share aspects of our culture and identity.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Growing up, I moved around a lot. I transitioned to being around predominantly Asian Americans to a very affluent White neighborhood and then to a predominantly Black and Latino high school. Needless to say, it was very visually apparent that I did not fit in with the other kids. However, after getting to know people you see beyond these visual differences, which was not something that was apparent to me growing up. Self-segregation was one key idea that came up when Taia and I were designing the teen council and we wanted to challenge that way of thinking. That was why diversity and inclusion had to be a key aspect in our model. With the council, the transition to online was definitely difficult. Not to mention juggling the different schedules and how to navigate conversation on an online platform. Everyone has been in those meetings where you don’t want to speak over someone and there are always those awkward pauses. Regardless of the struggles, we manage to have very important conversations that are organic and eye-opening.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Other than Taia, who has been my partner in crime for this project, is Jennifer Kapral. She was actually my academic dean in high school before she started working with the Asia Society in academic outreach. She was the one who gave me this opportunity to work with the Asia Society and has been my main source of support in getting the tools and resources needed to carry out this project. Not to mention her years in education have really come in handy when creating different workshops and lessons.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanthesoupcan/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/vanthesoupcan
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