I’m quite grateful and humbled to get to this point. Looking at my journey through education, there were so many places where I could have fallen through the cracks.

But it’s official. I’m an MA Candidate at UCLA in Asian American Studies. One step closer to being one of the few Vietnamese Americans in Ethnic Studies research.

Now I just gotta make sure to get through these last two quarters…senioritis is hitting me bad.

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 coordinator. It was really a a rags to riches feeling for me: having been on stage only the year before as a beginning dancer to now helping the team as a leader was an experience I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.

March 2011: Asian Pacific Coalition Internship

This year, I had the opportunity to be the Leadership Development Coordinator for APC — meaning I would craft the curriculum of and facilitate the APC Internship. This photo is a Team Builder I had all my interns do the first day that they met — one of the challenges was to take a photo with every body in the picture and post it on my Facebook wall. It was fantastic watching my peers develop their critical lenses and become the confident API leaders that they are now on campus. Plus, it let me pretend to be an Asian American Studies professor ;)

April 2011: Southeast Asian Admit Weekend

Access and education are really the two things which define me as an organizer. Yes, there is always advocacy and community development, but at heart I am truly an educator and SEA Admit Weekend attempts to confront the issue head-on in Southeast Asian communities. I’ve always been involved with SEA Admit weekend but this year I took a step back to return to my passions and become a workshop coordinator, allowing me direct access to the students rather than directing the program as I’ve done in the past.

May 2011: Community Programs Office Banquet

This is a photo of myself with Asian Pacific Coalition Staff of 2010-2011. We were small but powerful. We helped revitalize a community that few had faith in and my experience with APC will define my career for a long time. Seriously, this was the definition of a bomb-ass team if I ever knew it. We tackled fucked up immigration policy, deportations, voting registration, and fucking Alexandra Wallace at the battle zone. If anything, we became family. I had some of my favorite drunken nights, intense intellectual conversations, challenging moments, emotionally wrecking and uplifting experiences of my life thus far.

June 2011: Santa Monica Pier

This here is a homo-erotic picture of myself with my roommate Derick. Fucking Derick. Hahaha. This is the year we became roommates. We’ve done some ratchet ass shit, seen some nasty stuff, and done some crazyass things. You frustrate me sometimes but I can’t seem to live without ya. You’re like a brother to me now — including the fact that I can get annoyed with you as much as I love hanging out with you sometimes haha. You’re always welcome here in SJ but next time make sure you triple check your departure time LOL. Also this photo was taken by my bro. He’s great huh.

June 2011: UC Berkeley Southeast Asian Student Coalition’s Summer Institute 2011

I’ve always been jealous of UC Berkeley’s Southeast Asian organizing space and community. If I had known about this in high school, I might have picked to go there instead of UCLA (…well realistically no, but whatever). To this day, I always wonder, “what if?” Anyway, this memory is particularly significant because it gave me the opportunity to work directly with students again in a development space — so much of my four years of organizing was defined by working behind the scenes. I thought I knew it all, especially being a Mentor for the program, but this experience proved to me that I will always be able to learn something new about myself.

July 2011: UCLA Travel Study to Hawaii

Fuck. When I think about the last time I was blissfully happy, Hawaii memories always come back to mind. I was with an amazing group of individuals, experienced some awesome shit, saw some crazy community stuff, and realized how much I loved the brown of my skin. I felt beautiful there, both inside and out. It was amazing academically as well — one of the few ways I was able to practice Ethnic Studies in conditions vastly different than I’m used to with multi-layered and multi-dimensional complications of API identity. I also got to meet one of my idols: Prometheus Brown from Blue Scholars.

August 2011: Garlic Fest

This is around the time I turned 21. My first Garlic Fest. Made sisters for life. If you don’t know, then I can’t say. Hahahaha.

August 2011: Asian Pacific Coalition 2011-2012 Staff Retreat

After such an amazing year of being on APC, I didn’t think another year could top it. It just wouldn’t be as great — how could it? However, after our first retreat (which incidentally was the first time we all met) at Lake Arrowhead, I was astounded. In some magical universe, I managed to have the privilege of working with some of the most passionate, critical, outspoken, and talented young folks. This year has been amazing so far — I see great stars in this team and I can’t wait to see what folks do after.

September 2011: Tuesday Night Cafe

I’ve written poetry for a long time. I have journals and journals of angsty shit dating back to the early 2000’s [middle school] haha. I won a slam contest in 8th grade. Over the years, my style has changed dramatically and spoken word wasn’t something I experimented with until college. I remember, my first live spoken word event also coincided with my first API organizing event: CAPSA in 2009 goes to Tuesday Night Cafe. There, I saw my [future] mentor perform a piece about being Queer and I was…liberated.  I thought to myself: damn, if I could ever do that, I could die happy. Turns out, two years later I would. I’ve got a ways to go to be the performer I want to be but thank you TNC for that opportunity.

October 2011: Occupy Los Angeles

Alright, this doesn’t look like an Occupy LA photo, but trust me it is. We (Asian Pacific Coalition) were the first group from UCLA to roll a student group out to Occupy LA, which was quite significant for us as we were concerned with the lack of PoC (esp. API) in this movement. We marched in with an API community contingent (for whom I was able to perform a Philip Vera Cruz piece —- “Human Dignity”). While things didn’t quite meet our expectation, having this event meant a lot to us and our community.

November 2011: Repeal Prop 209 Rally

2011 was a highly political year, especially concerning students who have intimate stakes in PoC communities. It comes after a decade of attacks in institutional and societal forms but enough was enough this year for many folks. Proposition 209 was being considered again during this time and we students felt it necessary to speak. Here, I am helping hold up a banner on behalf of the API community’s stake in this matter, whether opinions have changed in the last decade or not.

November 2011: API West Coast Coalition

There have been regional API student organization networks in the past. Many lived, thrived, but all died. Some died within months of their development. We on the West Coast have not seen one in a while, begging the question of: is it necessary? It brings up great points of how vibrant our communities have become (especially on the shoulders of previous organizing) but in light of a shattering society, it is necessary now. This is what we came to at Students of Color Conference 2011 and I’m honored to be a part of developing this. We all have high hopes, let’s hope it delivers.

November 2011: UC Regents Rally

Occupy Movements, Proposition 209, Police Brutality, all are connected. Here, I am a part of the UC Regents Rally in protest of how they are cutting budgets (ie bleeding students). This message is clear: we will not be silent.

December 2011: Vegas

Alright, kind of a combo breaker here since the last few were so political but damn this is the first time I’ve been to Vegas! No, not as just a 21 year old but in forever! Also, being 21 in Vegas is awesome! I really can understand why people go here now. However, I didn’t party as hard that weekend (I’m realizing my party stamina is low low low) as I’m getting old but I reminisce about it now. I definitely get a craving of going again as long as it’s with the right people. I spent a lot of time surrounding myself with many people, but who were the right people? And in Vegas, I realized, you gotta make an effort to make the right people with who you got. Definitely a great time.

—

Woo. That took a while. What a self-wanking spiel. 2012 sees some interesting highlights too: graduating, grad school (maybe?), returning home, coming to terms, health advocacy, age. Damn.

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 years – long enough for a generation of youth of color to grow up without mentors and without seeing figures who look like them in institutions of higher education. In one fell swoop, a golden legacy borne out of the assertion of millions of transformed minds and decades of empowered work cut shamefully short.

However, I am even more ashamed that we live in a time where the public blinds itself to the systemic injustices that Proposition 209 has actively addressed and sought to correct. This was not the California which I was raised to believe in.

What kind of place do are we in today where a public education sought is a public education denied? What kind of place are we in today where the overwhelming majority of our public high schools are more effective as a mechanism to marginalize and criminalize youth rather than serve as a mechanism to liberate, empower, and reaffirm a human life and experience? What kind of place are we in today where so-called ‘merits’ and ‘indolence’ are wrongfully conflated with the underlying issue of inequitable distribution of resources and access as navigated through race, national origin, gender, sexuality?

The fight for affirmative action is not about quotas, merits, or unfair preferences as you might have been wrongfully told. Rather, the fight for affirmative action is a fight for a more just and equitable America that recognizes why it was a pursued solution in the first place: in order to liberate education from its cages in the hands of the few and privileged in this country and allow those who are most separated
from it the chance to pursue it.

At the cusp of a great social upheaval as we are today where teachers join hands with freedom fighters in order to rise up to critique our economic structures, now is the time to act as those who do not act are just as culpable as those who actively resist change.

So today, I stand here in solidarity to repeal Proposition 209 not because of statistics, facts, or any other quantitative reason. Rather, I stand here in solidarity because repealing Proposition 209 is simply the right thing to do and I urge you all to exercise your right to democracy and ensure the future is bright for our generations to come.

-Trung Nguyen, UCLA Asian American Studies, Asian Pacific Coalition Director

open your mind. repeal 209.

With some folks @ Ala Moana Beach in the UCLA Asian Am Summer Travel Study Hawaii 2011.

Fuhh I love really love bein here.

This has been my most efficient Finals Week yet. While I had the most papers I’ve ever written in a single week span, I managed to finish all of them 24 hours before they were due — a feat I don’t think I’ve ever pulled off in my life. No lie — I’ve been pulling all nighters since my freshman year of high school.

I managed to explore some really sweet topics too, some of which I’m hoping to explore in graduate school. These are good starts. I’m hoping for at least B’s on all these papers lol.

AAS 112: Asian American Creative Writing

• Jump [14 pages]

AAS M114: Asian Americans and Education

• Hearts and Minds: Linking Education and Organizing in the API Community at UCLA [11 pages]

AAS 187A: Ethnography in Asian American Communities

• Defining Visibility: Organizing the Cham American Community [8 pages]

AAS 191D: Queer/Feminist Theories of Comparative Race and Coalition

• Wars, Genocide, and Displacement: Excising U.S. Anti-Communist Interests in Privileging Southeast Asian Narratives [10 pages]

WOO SUMMER TIME!

I’m really enjoying the process of writing ethnography. It’s allowed me to open myself up to transformation by being within the community rather than swiftly entering in and out without regard of the implications of my presence.

Here I am with M. Porome, the President of the International Office of Champa! He’s such an awesome guy and from him I’ve begun to learn so much about the Cham community, myself, my people, and my history.

He also left me with a quotation that I feel I will take with me in my years to come: “When you know you are doing good for the community, you will have no fear. Not from the government, not from other people, not from anybody.”

Here I am with Guy Tang and some awesome folks from UCLA talkin about Asian American men in porno and its meaning in greater Asian American organizing. Skip to 10:30 for a history lesson by yours truly til about 16:30 ish.

Here’s the result of assignment for my Asian American Social Movements course. Making a personal identity card —

Your personal identity card will have the following:

1.  Your first name (written largely)

2.  Either a drawing of yourself or a photo, along with a small symbol representing something important in your life

3.  Finally, identify one “super power” that you currently possess or want to have, and explain why this is important to you

Imagination is a super power.

Among many of the critical perspectives I’ve had the privilege to exercise and explore as an Asian American Studies major at UCLA, I’ve found that my Tattoos, Piercings, & Body Art class at UCLA (Asian American Studies 187A) has, as of recent, been the most exciting; not to say my other seminars haven’t been equally enthralling as well, but rather it has allowed upon me the space and opportunity to think about my Asian American male body in its genderized performance and adornment.

One critique I have consistently had of myself in the course of working in activist spaces and the pursuit of myself through the vehicle of academia is that I have paid little attention to my Queer self and the body. While I feel in the past couple of months I have begun the process of better understanding this body (as evidenced through a lot of my sensual pieces), it wasn’t until we spoke of the Body Politic and Body Theories in this course where I could conceptualize, theorize, bring voice to how I empower this body and this body empowers me and what this relationship has, historically, meant to me.

My first experience with body modification began when I was four years old: armed with a pair of safety scissors, I took them to my own bangs and lopped off a good half inch right in the middle of the fringe despite the forebodings of my equally modified friend (he had a rat tail). Though I don’t remember what initially motivated me to bring the scissors to my head, I distinctly remember the secret thrill I felt in the aftermath. To see the hair fall from my face, to have my self changed from my own hand — this was a small act of empowerment. I didn’t have much time to relish in this temporary dip into self-affirmation though — my memory hazes the exact occurrence of that event and what I know of it has been historicized through tales told by my sister. Did I even get to look at myself in the mirror? Did I continue to lop off my hair until my astonished sister wrestled the safety scissors from my hands? Did I encourage my friend to participate in this act with me?

There’s no documentation aside from her story. I’ll never really know what occurred, for what I was told occurred (the story was told to me years later) was that I was quickly caught, attempted to hide the scissors behind my back, but obviously failed in concealing the deviant act as the evidence was as clear as day right across my face : there was a chunk of hair missing from my bangs made all the more dramatic with the rigid lines of the bowl-cut I had. All I can say was truth are the genuine feelings which stirred within me as I read about body modification and began to reflect on it, with the memory of feeling exhilarated by this childhood event ringing clear in my mind.

It is a profound experience though to reflect back on this one particular memory and be able to pinpoint it as the (or a) moment where I first felt the power to reclaim and transform this body. The act of cutting hair has, in the mythology of my childhood as constructed by my parents and siblings, always been a point of contention. Some of the most common stories my parents recounted about my childhood revolved around the kicking and screaming whenever somebody brought shears close to my head and how they would have to wait until I was fast asleep before they could cut my hair. I mention this as a legitimate parallel to my first story because I distinctly remember an experience at the barber, where I cried and screamed the moment they set me down in the kiddie chair. Not even a inky blue Wonderpop alleviated my wailing. Eventually, my dad gave up and took me home.

Hair was only the beginning of my obsession with my own body modification processes. I remember at 8 years old, I would always rush to the archives of various bodybuilding magazines that my older cousins had and flip through them, wondering when I would be like them. I’m still in the process of understanding that, but it was strange how those were the magazines I consistently picked out as such a young age. There had to be some kind of meaning in that, right?

The attention toward my physical body reached another height in the fifth grade, and this time it concerned my weight. I was a chubby child. I was pushing 100lbs and was barely 4 feet tall. It was enough so that my weight was a salient factor : comments were made by peers and, most of all, family. None of these comments were ever intentionally hurtful I think, but I was largely a joke. My trip to Vietnam during that time didn’t help either — I was the poster child of America in their minds: overstuffed, spoiled, decadent.

I decided, spontaneously one day thereafter, that I would stop eating. The quickest way to lose the weight, I felt, was through starvation. And in fifth grade, I became a ten year old male anorexic. Of course, I did not spend weeks without food, but I would go days. The longer I refused to eat, the more I saw my body change, and in that way, I had control over my body. However, this became a departure point in my body modification narrative: this is more body mutilation, as it was destructive and harmful, an act done out of societal conditions rather than an exploration. I resumed normal habits after about a year.

Why so sudden it seems? It was because I replaced one mutilation with another during those middle years: cutting.

As of now, these events in my pre-pubescent years are only as far as I’ve been able to reflect. As I continue the course my this class, I hope to continue to uncover the meanings of the relationship between my self and my body as a form of empowerment and self-construction in relation to my gender, ethnicity, and sexuality.

There are still questions I have in mind: at what point did my relationship with my body go from affirming (touches of it as a child with cutting my hair) to destructive? And when was it reversed? Also, a more current question: how are my modifications now a transformative process not just internally but also externally by provoking questions on the public sphere and as a challenge to the normative idea of the Asian American Male? Or perhaps even the reverse, how am I an agent of reproducing those ideas, especially as a Queer person of color?

Right now I have four piercings: an eyebrow, lip, and two gauged ears. I regularly shave my head and trim my facial hair. Also, I adhere to strict schedules of going to the gym.

And now it seems, it all makes a little bit more sense.