February 2012
3 posts
4 tags
January 2012
8 posts
6 tags
Picture Son: How to Love Yourself and Your Gay...
Something I wrote for the most recent issue of Non Song. Intersections between being Vietnamese-American, second generation, and gay. Enjoy!
Picture Son: How to Love Yourself and Your Gay Vietnamese Children
By Trung Nguyen
I kept watch at the mailbox every day for the first two weeks of May during my Senior year of high school, memorizing the exact window of time the mail carrier approached our...
“It is true that there are many great schools in this country that offer every...”
– Linda Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education
7 tags
faith
There are photos of my family at church which are older than I am. Looking through the albums, the church book-ends one era to another for my family: my parents in front of the church that sponsored them here, my middle sister’s baptism ceremony, my oldest sister’s confirmation ceremony, my own baptism, marriages of my uncles and aunties. There are even a couple of photos of me dozing...
mind sailors
http://knowthesaurus.tumblr.com/ask
What’s everyone doing tonight?
December 2011
13 posts
11 tags
2011 Retrospective: The Clip Show
Looking back, 2011 was full of interesting things. Let’s review in pictures (aka me posting the cutest pictures of mine)!
Jan, 2011: Vietnamese Culture Night
I’ve been a part of VCN as a performer (actor, designer, dancer) since my second year — it was truly where I developed my confidence. This year was particularly special as I was here in the role of a modern dance...
1 tag
Love is that which enables choice. Love is always...
words to live by.
nobody gonna want you if you don't want yourself
Why I Won't "Teach For America"
lessoninteaching:
If you know me, you probably know I’m pretty anti-TFA. A little thing I wrote up a few months ago sums up my thoughts:
When I tell people—strangers, professors, friends—of my plan to become an elementary school teacher, the number one response I receive is a version of “Oh, so you’re applying to Teach For America?” Because I’m a private-school educated junior at a top...
san jose
Being at home in San Jose for the last two weeks has made me come to realize how much of an extrovert I am. I’ve been constantly exhausted and nonproductive in my isolation.
I derive most of my energy from being around people.
more i grow, the less i know
getting older hasn’t translated to getting wiser. yeah i might be a little more of a smartass than i used to be and i can drop book knowledge when the time calls, but i’m hardly anywhere close to finding answers.
a few things i need to confess —
i hate how after x number of years of being out and trying out hundreds of different permutations of relationships, hookups, and...
pedagogy
reward curiosity.
something to remember if i ever become an educator.
Anonymous asked: what is your stance on colour blindness?
Anonymous asked: why do you support affirmative action?
Words and Steel: Reclaiming "Asian American" ... →
wordsandsteel:
I know I don’t really repost much on Tumblr, and rarely if ever bother to write something of my own, but I’ve been marinating on a few thoughts partly in response to (but long brewing beforehand) a recent API students town hall held on campus a few days ago. This in no way is meant to denigrate the hard work of the student organizers who put it together or to dismiss the real...
willpower
December 1, 2011 - May 1, 2012. 5 months.
Gonna keep myself accountable to this.
November 2011
15 posts
8 tags
9 tags
sad reality of mentorship
I’ve had the blessed honor of mentoring and interacting with a great number of youth, particularly youth of color, in my last four years of college: Breakthrough Collaborative, SEA Admit Weekend, High School Conference, SASC-SI are some of the highlights. Across my undergraduate career, I’ve interacted with hundreds of young folk only half a decade younger than I. It’s been...
bullshit
Too “political” my ass.
What’s political about dropping out of school because you can’t afford it? What’s political about having to choose between a higher education and a roof over your head? What’s political about being punished for the mistakes of the wealthy (re: corporations and banks) as they get away scot-free?
If too “political” means...
9 tags
number #1 advice
good tattoos aren’t cheap. if you’re gonna permanently mark your body with some art, take some time to do research. and holy balls, please don’t be frugal about it.
“You work too much.”
– Dad. It’s so strange hearing that from you. But I’m doing this for you so you don’t have to anymore.
reigns
The most difficult thing about my grad school apps right now is narrowing down my passions.
9 tags
the right thing
I had the wonderful privilege to speak to the UCLA community about Proposition 209 yesterday. I would like to share with you all my speech. My hope is that somewhere, this will make sense to somebody. And we stand in solidarity with you.
I am ashamed that it has taken over ten years for us to get to the point where the ban on Proposition 209 is now back in the hands of the courts. Over ten...
4 tags
4 tags
“in my 30 years of being in the US, this is the first time that not a single kid...”
– my vietnamese mother, on halloween. she’s more savvy about contemporary american culture change than i thought
October 2011
6 posts
2 tags
in another life,
who would i have been?
it's all messed up
We are at the crossroads of a significant moment in history, a defining moment of our generation.
There exists within everybody the potential to fuel the revolution. To believe otherwise is to give in to capital and deny the humanity of our emergent souls.
In any conversation about this morning, over ‘there’, or that video, I see small resistance movements winning in the hearts of...
September 2011
10 posts
5 tags
modern mom
Me: Hey Mom, I’m taking Vietnamese at school right now.
Mom (in viet): LOL REALLY? I’m gonna text you instead of calling you from now on and you have to respond back in Vietnamese.
—
And then she tells me that she’s gonna go to bed smiling tonight.
1 tag
4 tags
"Back in the day," you couldn't find our newly... →
colorblinding:
“Back in the day,” as my sons would say, the term Asian and Pacific Islander American was born of the need to define ourselves rather than let others do it for us. Much like in the African American political movement where Negro became Black and Black became African American; Oriental became Asian and Asian became Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) and all are subject to...
heart - rocky rivera
for all of the womyn who lay...
asian americans, fashion, and audrey
Last night, a friend of mine invited me last minute to an event in downtown Los Angeles. It wasn’t any event though, but rather a Fashion Show sponsored by Audrey Magazine, an Asian American Women’s interest mag. Audrey’s Night Out seemed like a pretty big deal in the community and had been going on for a couple of years now. Looking at the website, I quickly came to realize:...