I am a second child; my sister is two years older than me and can understand both
Vietnamese and Chinese. My parents taught her how to speak both languages growing up and
when she went to school, she couldn’t understand anybody. So they learned from that mistake
and they taught me English and I forgot how to speak Vietnamese and Chinese over time. This
became a challenge over time because a lot of people I was surrounded by only spoke
Vietnamese and/or Chinese. Since I forgot how to speak Vietnamese, I never felt like I fit in with
the Asian community. I didn’t know how to speak Vietnamese or knew the cultural norms.
Whenever somebody would try speaking to me, I would always have to ask my parents to
translate for me or would just tell the person that I don’t understand them. They would be
confused and just laugh because what kind of Asian kid didn’t know how to speak the language?
As I grew up, I would learn Vietnamese little by little, I would remember words I commonly
heard and use context clues to figure out what those words meant. I learned how to live without
speaking Vietnamese, even though some part of me felt like an outcast like I wasn’t fully Asian
or ever will be because I couldn’t speak the language.
I’ve always been interested in Aviation; my dad has been an A&P Mechanic for Textron
Aviation for 26 years, so I grew up around airplanes my whole life. When I was a sophomore in
high school, I learned about a program at WSU Tech called Aviation Maintenance & Technology,
the same one my dad took to get his A&P license. I joined the program in the fall of my junior
year, and I absolutely loved it. I continued the program through the summer with night classes,
during that summer I learned that I could still do night classes my senior year and I did. I went to
my high school classes during the day, then night classes from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through
Thursday. I did that my whole senior year and the summer after I graduated to finish the
program. I started the program in August 2020 and finished in August 2022. I knew it was worth
it because I finished with an associate’s degree in Aviation Maintenance and Technology, an
Airframe Technical Certificate, a Powerplant Technical Certificate, and the ability to get an A&P
license, which I am still working on obtaining. It was very challenging trying to manage my
classes at WSU Tech and my high school classes but I made it through and I will forever be
proud of myself for pushing myself through it and finishing.
I was fortunate growing up, I had a nice home, food to eat, and the ability to play with the
toys that I wanted. In 2016, my sister was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. She started having to
have many surgeries performed on her and the medical bills started to pile up. My parents
worked as much overtime as they could to pay off these medical bills and once I was 16, I started
working so I could provide for myself and my sister while my parents worked. I knew that we
had to save money because the medical bills were not cheap, and my sister kept getting surgery
after surgery because she wasn’t getting better. Since then she has had 13 surgeries and many
hospital visits. My parents still must pay the medical bills and my dad works 12-hour shifts 7
days a week to pay for them. My sister works whenever she can to get money to help out and I
do the same. I want to finish college debt-free, so I can save up money to be able to send my
parents on a nice vacation to say thank you for all of the things they have done for me.