Natasha Smith interview
Item
Title
Natasha Smith interview
Creator
Smith, Natasha
Banh, Jenny
Relation
Central Valley Southeast Asian Successful Voices
Coverage
Fresno, California
Date
2017
Rights
Copyright has been transferred to Fresno State
Identifier
SCMS_casv_00019
extracted text
>> Welcome. Thank you so much for being consenting to be interviewed for our new Fresno State archive called
Successful Southeast Asians. If you can say your name and spell it.
>> Natasha Smith. N-A-T-A-S-H-A. Last name is Smith, S-M-I-T-H.
>> Great. Can you give me verbal permission to interview you and as well as to cite you if needed in all academic
purposes for our new Successful Southeast Asian Archive?
>> Yes.
>> Great. And again, just to be clear. You can always rescind your permission any time. And it is all voluntary. Great.
Can you -- I think, I did ask you your name and you spelled it, right?
>> Yes.
>> OK, great. Thank you. What is your gender?
>> Female.
>> What is the year that you're born?
>> 1990.
>> What is your ethnic group?
>> Caucasian and Asian.
>> Specifically what is your, I guess what do you identify as?
>> I guess that's tricky, right? Because I don't really think about race a lot in my everyday life so I identify in mixed
settings when nobody is talking about my race, I just identify as white. But when people ask me what I am, I say that I'm
Vietnamese American and my mom's Vietnamese and my dad is American white.
>> Great. What is your undergraduate major?
>> It is geology.
>> What generation are you in the United States? First generation? Second generation?
>> I would say, probably, I mean second generation. My mom was the first one in her family to come to the states.
>> OK. And do you know the generation you would be on your father's side?
>> Oh wow. I don't. I know that his ancestors came over on the Mayflower.
>> OK.
>> Some of them.
>> Alright. In terms of your family composition, how many siblings do you have?
>> I have one brother.
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>> And what was your GPA as an undergraduate?
>> 3.65.
>> Great. What was your ultimate degree aspiration? Do you want to get a BA and beyond or?
>> Yeah, BA and beyond.
>> OK. Growing up, what was your socioeconomic status? Was it working class, middle class, affluent?
>> How would you define?
>> It's self-defined. It's -- I let my interviewers, whatever you self-define as.
>> I would probably say affluent.
>> OK. And at your high school type, was it public or private?
>> Public.
>> And what high school did you go to?
>> [Inaudible] High School in Sacramento.
>> Oh great. What was the racial and economic -- I'm sorry. What was the racial and ethnic demographics of your high
school?
>> I would say it's highly mixed. There were -- I don't really know the exact proportions -- but there were mixes. There
were a lot of African Americans and Hispanics [inaudible] and there were also Asians generally. And then there was
also some white kids too.
>> Great.
>> Non-Hispanic.
>> So looking back at Vietnamese in particular, why do Vietnamese people go to college and why do they not go to
college?
>> I can't really speak to that. I actually don't know very many Vietnamese people except for my family.
>> Really?
>> I don't really ->> OK.
>> Have any [laughing].
>> That's fine [laughing]. What is your favorite subject in college? What was your least favorite subject?
>> My favorite subject was sociology. And my least favorite subject was probably geology.
>> Geology. OK. To you, what makes a good professor for you to pass a class and to graduate? And what makes a bad
professor?
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>> I would say that a good professor is attentive to their students' questions and offers engaging lecture material and
provides tests that actually reflect the learning objectives of the class and not arbitrary learning objectives or things that
weren't covered.
>> Great. Have you ever been mentored?
>> Define mentored.
>> Well, anything. It would be self-definition. So has anyone ever given you advice or anyone guided you in any way,
in any capacity? Self-defined.
>> Yes.
>> Great. In what capacity did that happen? Was that ->> So ->> Go ahead.
>> Yeah. So there's a couple of different ways I would say that that did happen. One was formally. In school I was part
of an honors program and we put together a research paper and project that lasted a year and I had a [inaudible]
professor that I spoke with and she agreed to be my mentor so she guided me through the process of doing a research
paper.
>> Great.
>> Of that type. And then I also worked with her throughout my time at Davis at school.
>> And you went to UC Davis?
>> Yes.
>> Great! Thinking back about your professors and your teachers from high school, did they have a high expectation of
you? Was it neutral? Was it a low expectation of you?
>> I would say that in high school my teachers had high expectations. I was also in, like, an accelerated program. It's
called [inaudible]. It's like a, it's a magnet program at the high school and they do mostly AP courses and it's smaller. It's
not smaller classes but you're grouped with the same kids basically and you all go through this different curriculum.
>> What's it called?
>> HISP, H-I-S-P.
>> H-I-S-T?
>> P. Human International Studies Program.
>> Oh, OK. Interesting. And did you find this successful?
>> Yeah, I found that the curriculum was engaging and it was, I think it was more enriching than the curriculum that the
rest of the school went through.
>> So did you feel that you were academically prepared for college from your high school?
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>> Yeah.
>> Great.
>> So the second part of the interview is actually on barriers. And again, these are all optional questions. You don't have
to answer if you don't know or you don't want to share. Do you feel that you had any barriers to your higher education
success such as working or gender or structural barriers or health or, you know, any kind of barrier you can think about?
Did you find that you had any barriers to higher education
>> Well, some attitudes. I had one chemistry teacher that had a really, he was not a very good teacher and so it really -he was very impatient with the learning process, I would say. And he only focused on the kids who were really
successful and got the material quickly and he didn't really have the patience for people who did not quickly grasp the
material. So that was discouraging.
>> OK. Did you find that you had any academic barriers such as do you think your English ability was adequate for UC
Davis? Or your English kind of level?
>> Yes.
>> OK. Any health barriers or gender barriers or family or work barriers?
>> No. I would say the only big issue that was probably could be considered a health barrier was I [inaudible] an eating
disorder throughout high school but that was probably a health barrier.
>> Definitely. Do you think that had something to do with your gender?
>> Oh yeah. I mean, I could go into that endlessly [laughing] but I mean, yes. Of course it had something to do with my
gender. But it also had something to do with expectations about the ways that a woman should behave and the high
achievement that's expected.
>> Did you find that there was any kind of racial barriers? Did you ever experience microaggressions or racism? Any
kind of aggressions in the classroom or outside?
>> Not in the classroom because my peers were similar to me in like racial and ethnic class makeup. But outside the
classroom, there was hostility with, I don't know, there were gangs and stuff at my school, so ->> Oh wow.
>> [Inaudible] And they would yell at you and you would just have to walk by them.
>> And then do you think that any of this at all kind of hampered your graduation success or do you think you graduated
very successfully -- I think the highest GPA we've interviewed so far. Do you think that had a, like a huge effect in
terms of any barriers?
>> Are you talking about high school or college?
>> Both. Anything that hampered your graduating. Did you think that anything?
>> No.
>> Did you ->> That was never really a question or an issue [laughing].
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>> Oh wow. Did you graduate in four years?
>> Yeah.
>> Oh wow.
>> But I've never -- my parents paid for my college so it wasn't really like an issue there.
>> Great.
>> I was very lucky.
>> Yeah, that's very rare. Actually now it goes into the success, right? So you are, well, it is a rising number for
southeast Asians going to college, but still we discussed earlier that it's not as high as we'd like. So you are actually
quite rare to actually do so well in college. Being of southeast Asian descent, let's talk about you in particular. Why do
you think that you made it when there were other people that for whatever reason did not graduate? What personal, what
is your personality traits that made you so successful?
>> I don't think it has very much to do with myself. I think that it has a lot to do with my class and the support that I
received and the, you know, financial support from my parents. They basically payed my entire tuition and living
expenses and I had a job but it was just kind of a -- it was just for play money. That, I would say, is the main reason that
I successfully graduated from college. The other is that there wasn't any real option to not graduate because my parents
were paying for it and they basically just [inaudible] if I didn't graduate [laughing].
>> Did your parents ->> So that was really the only option.
>> Did your parents go to college?
>> Yes, my mom went to college and my dad went to college.
>> And they went to Fresno State?
>> Correct.
>> Wow. OK. And so if you're thinking back when you're in a youth and a child, did your family cultivate any college?
Because you said there was no other choice other than going to college. But how did your family convey this to you?
Did they tell you stories? Did they encourage you? What did they say to you to say college is not a -- you know, because
this doesn't happen in other places, right? It's college is not encouraged. So what did they do as a family to kind of
enable your achievement?
>> Well education was always important. It's always been valued in my family. Above everything else, it's the most
important thing. I have [inaudible] because it's really a way to fix these later on in life.
>> Did they tell you this? Or ->> Yep.
>> Oh! OK. How did they -- they just straight told you this when you were a child? How did they -- were there other
ways of conveying this?
>> Yeah. So when we were kids and we were really little, my mom would always read to us. Literacy was very
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important. She spent a lot of time on that. And then also engaging with us as we grew older, just, you know, kind of
facilitating the more critical thinking aspect of our development. So we would always listen to NPR. We would have
newspapers in the house, any books. I was -- like there was always something to read. We'd always go to the library.
And she also had the Economist and just, around so we could read it.
>> Wow.
>> And I think she definitely made an effort. And also they gave our tutoring in high school for math for me. So that
was important. And I had some moments in college as well when I told them I was dropping out and I wanted to do
something completely different and they were like, that's not happening. I'm sorry. It's not happening. So yeah. All
along. And they helped me with the college application. The other thing that might be interesting for you is that I wasn't
initially accepted to UC Davis. I was accepted to Santa Cruz but not Davis and then my dad has a friend who is
connected at UC Davis. I think he's an admissions chancellor or something related to that. And my dad told his friend,
hey my daughter didn't get accepted, what can you do? And my dad's friend told him to tell me to appeal the decision.
So I appealed the decision and I was accepted to Davis.
>> Wow. So you seem to have very, like, activist parents in terms of education [laughing].
>> Yeah. I don't know if they're activists, but ->> Not activists. I'm sorry. Encouraging in education. Excuse me [laughing].
>> Yeah. They're very interested in having my brother and I be successful and independent from them.
>> And then did your parents ever talk about family stories or hardships where they encouraged you because of the
family hardship? Did that ever happen to encourage you to do well in school?
>> Yeah.
>> Can you give an example?
>> So yeah. Well, my mom would talk about how important education was to her family when they came over from
Vietnam and how that's really the way that they assimilated and got stability. And I think her story is more interesting
than my story because education is really the way that they, at least her and her sisters, they put value in their family.
And so her parents made sure that they went to college so they could be successful and that was their way of
assimilating, I think.
>> Great. So it seems like your family was very or is continuously very into education and your achievement. Do you
think that your community or institutional actors, I guess, do they enable you to have college success as well? For
example, we have this Hmong B-Boy Archive and these Hmong students from Fresno are saying that because they are
B-Boys, which are breakdancers, that really helped them finish college. And then we have another group of Mian
students who that -- I guess once a year Mian students will recognize high school graduates and that's kind of a very
good community kind of pusher in academics. Do you think that you had any kind of community or institutional
enablers to your academic success?
>> I wouldn't say I had anything like that.
>> Anything such as church or dance groups or friends?
>> I mean, all my friends were graduating from. They were all going. I met them all in college and in high school and
they were all high achievers. And they came from high achieving families, so there really wasn't -- if you, you know, if
you didn't, if you dropped out of high school or you dropped out of college, you were kind of an outsider.
>> Interesting. Can you talk a little more about your friends? Did that motivate you at all to stay in school and graduate?
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>> Yeah. I mean, everybody was kind of on the same track as -- like it really wasn't an option to not graduate.
>> Interesting.
>> But I didn't have any for those -- I wasn't a part of any clubs or anything.
>> When you think back at -- you said your friends and your family were good, I guess, enablers are academic success.
When you think back at UC Davis, do you think UC Davis was a warm environment towards you?
>> In what way?
>> Well, did you feel welcome? Did you feel that you were a part of the campus community? Sometimes minority
groups, particularly African American males sometimes express that, you know, they might be treated differently, right,
than other students on campus and so they don't feel as warm of an environment as other students who, you know, don't
go through the same issues. Did you find UC Davis to be warm?
>> Yes, I would say that it is about as welcoming as a large institution could be [laughing].
>> Oh!
>> With 30,000 students [laughing].
>> Wow.
>> It's just a large institution. Right? So you kind of deal with that issue. But it's not like anybody was committing hate
crimes towards me.
>> Oh wow. OK. So here, these are just, these are like the last questions where it's just yes/no questions. And just think
in your mind, do you think this would help you in your four-year graduation? Do you think that having smaller classes
would be more helpful?
>> Yes.
>> How about more co-ethnic professors, such as more Asian professors?
>> Yes.
>> What about co-ethnic classmates?
>> Yes
>> More co-ethnic clubs?
>> No.
>> No? OK. And then if you wanted to have more college success workshops, what workshops would you want?
>> I'd say probably just dealing with, like a stress management workshop.
>> Great. We could do that. Stress management workshop. OK. Anything else?
>> hmm. Time management. How to study.
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>> Time management. OK. We also can do that as well.
>> Yeah.
>> Time management and a stress. OK. Any other workshop you'd like to see?
>> Not that I can think of ->> OK.
>> Off the top of my head.
>> Great. These are things that we definitely can employ at our school. So the last question is if you have ten pieces of
advice to do well academically. A lot of students really struggle in class and you know, sometimes for whatever reason - oop -- they want to not continue. Is there any like ten pieces of advice? Or you know, whatever advice you have for the
third generation? You are second generation but the third generation [beep beep]. I'm sorry. That how -- what are ways
that they could be successful? And then also if you could give us five maybe kind of self-love [laughing] or selfguidance advice. Because you're extremely successful and I think for people listening to you I think particularly
students, they're really looking for ways of, you know, achieving success like yourself. So is there any piece of advice
you have?
>> That's a lot of pressure.
>> [Laughing] No worries. It's not pressure. I interviewed 37 other people so it's like, you know, your own. Everyone's
different. Everyone's, you know, if they're LGBT they talk about, you know, how you can combat, you know, you
know, being LGBT, Asian, and the community. Or I interview other people who have seven kids, and so they talk about
you -- so it's whatever, you know, whatever you want to throw out in advice [laughing].
>> Sure. Yeah. So I guess the first thing I would say just from -- I also run my own business with my partner. We've run
it for three years and we started it up from pretty much nothing and I would say I've learned more from doing that just
about tenacity and not giving up that I think that I can identify with people who are struggling to graduate either high
school or college and I would say how there are going to be things that seem impossible and you just can't give up. You
can't think that that's the final answer. Right? You just can't accept giving up as an option. You just have to keep going
and find a way to make it work and you have to be -- it cannot be won. Don't give up. Be gritty [laughing].
>> Be gritty. [Laughing] OK. Good advice.
>> Yeah. And the second one is be humble. You can't think that you know everything and that you're smart enough to
not have to study. It takes a lot of work to be successful and you have to do things that are boring or tedious or hard
emotionally and physically. So I think just be humble and accept, you know, I guess accept what it takes to be
successful and do it [laughing].
>> OK.
>> Even if it's humble.
>> OK. Great advice.
>> And I feel like that's a lot. I mean, ten pieces of advice. Be kind to yourself.
>> Be kind to yourself.
>> Even when you're having -- sometimes you're having a hard day. If you're dealing with something or stressed, be
kind to yourself and don't feel like you need to be happy, on top of the world every day. Sometimes you just need to be
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in that. Feel the struggle for a little while and it will motivate you to be successful, I guess [laughing]. I don't know.
>> Yeah. In terms of being kind of to yourself, are you thinking about health in terms of meditation or yoga? What are
you thinking when you think, when you say be kind to yourself?
>> I'm just talking about I have high expectations for myself and I am a perfectionist. So when I say be kind to myself,
it's like if you make mistake, everybody makes mistakes.
>> Right.
>> It's not the end of the world. You just have to learn how to work through those mistakes and how to be better next
time. And apologize if you did something that affected other people. It's probably better to, again, be humble and tell
them that you made a mistake and then that you'll do better next time and then actually learn from your mistake and
figure it out next time.
>> Great. Do you have any self-care advice on -- a lot of the students have a lot of stress [laughing].
>> Yeah.
>> And they really struggle in class sometimes concentrating because they have so much stress. Is there any self-care
advice you could give to them?
>> I find that exercise is really good.
>> Exercise. Yes.
>> Yeah. Just getting outside and even just going for a walk is really grounding. I also have a dog.
>> Oh!
>> So I play with my dog [laughing] when I get stressed out. Or I call a friend. So but yeah. Just eating healthy and
planning your meals out and not being hungry, I think if you can be an adult and plan your meals, then you know, do
that sort of thing, that also helps with not getting to the point where you're hangry.
>> Yes [laughing]. Great.
>> That's important.
>> Well I guess that's it unless you have anything else to add.
>> No, that's it. That's it.
>> So thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed and let me turn off this tape recorder.
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Successful Southeast Asians. If you can say your name and spell it.
>> Natasha Smith. N-A-T-A-S-H-A. Last name is Smith, S-M-I-T-H.
>> Great. Can you give me verbal permission to interview you and as well as to cite you if needed in all academic
purposes for our new Successful Southeast Asian Archive?
>> Yes.
>> Great. And again, just to be clear. You can always rescind your permission any time. And it is all voluntary. Great.
Can you -- I think, I did ask you your name and you spelled it, right?
>> Yes.
>> OK, great. Thank you. What is your gender?
>> Female.
>> What is the year that you're born?
>> 1990.
>> What is your ethnic group?
>> Caucasian and Asian.
>> Specifically what is your, I guess what do you identify as?
>> I guess that's tricky, right? Because I don't really think about race a lot in my everyday life so I identify in mixed
settings when nobody is talking about my race, I just identify as white. But when people ask me what I am, I say that I'm
Vietnamese American and my mom's Vietnamese and my dad is American white.
>> Great. What is your undergraduate major?
>> It is geology.
>> What generation are you in the United States? First generation? Second generation?
>> I would say, probably, I mean second generation. My mom was the first one in her family to come to the states.
>> OK. And do you know the generation you would be on your father's side?
>> Oh wow. I don't. I know that his ancestors came over on the Mayflower.
>> OK.
>> Some of them.
>> Alright. In terms of your family composition, how many siblings do you have?
>> I have one brother.
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>> And what was your GPA as an undergraduate?
>> 3.65.
>> Great. What was your ultimate degree aspiration? Do you want to get a BA and beyond or?
>> Yeah, BA and beyond.
>> OK. Growing up, what was your socioeconomic status? Was it working class, middle class, affluent?
>> How would you define?
>> It's self-defined. It's -- I let my interviewers, whatever you self-define as.
>> I would probably say affluent.
>> OK. And at your high school type, was it public or private?
>> Public.
>> And what high school did you go to?
>> [Inaudible] High School in Sacramento.
>> Oh great. What was the racial and economic -- I'm sorry. What was the racial and ethnic demographics of your high
school?
>> I would say it's highly mixed. There were -- I don't really know the exact proportions -- but there were mixes. There
were a lot of African Americans and Hispanics [inaudible] and there were also Asians generally. And then there was
also some white kids too.
>> Great.
>> Non-Hispanic.
>> So looking back at Vietnamese in particular, why do Vietnamese people go to college and why do they not go to
college?
>> I can't really speak to that. I actually don't know very many Vietnamese people except for my family.
>> Really?
>> I don't really ->> OK.
>> Have any [laughing].
>> That's fine [laughing]. What is your favorite subject in college? What was your least favorite subject?
>> My favorite subject was sociology. And my least favorite subject was probably geology.
>> Geology. OK. To you, what makes a good professor for you to pass a class and to graduate? And what makes a bad
professor?
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>> I would say that a good professor is attentive to their students' questions and offers engaging lecture material and
provides tests that actually reflect the learning objectives of the class and not arbitrary learning objectives or things that
weren't covered.
>> Great. Have you ever been mentored?
>> Define mentored.
>> Well, anything. It would be self-definition. So has anyone ever given you advice or anyone guided you in any way,
in any capacity? Self-defined.
>> Yes.
>> Great. In what capacity did that happen? Was that ->> So ->> Go ahead.
>> Yeah. So there's a couple of different ways I would say that that did happen. One was formally. In school I was part
of an honors program and we put together a research paper and project that lasted a year and I had a [inaudible]
professor that I spoke with and she agreed to be my mentor so she guided me through the process of doing a research
paper.
>> Great.
>> Of that type. And then I also worked with her throughout my time at Davis at school.
>> And you went to UC Davis?
>> Yes.
>> Great! Thinking back about your professors and your teachers from high school, did they have a high expectation of
you? Was it neutral? Was it a low expectation of you?
>> I would say that in high school my teachers had high expectations. I was also in, like, an accelerated program. It's
called [inaudible]. It's like a, it's a magnet program at the high school and they do mostly AP courses and it's smaller. It's
not smaller classes but you're grouped with the same kids basically and you all go through this different curriculum.
>> What's it called?
>> HISP, H-I-S-P.
>> H-I-S-T?
>> P. Human International Studies Program.
>> Oh, OK. Interesting. And did you find this successful?
>> Yeah, I found that the curriculum was engaging and it was, I think it was more enriching than the curriculum that the
rest of the school went through.
>> So did you feel that you were academically prepared for college from your high school?
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>> Yeah.
>> Great.
>> So the second part of the interview is actually on barriers. And again, these are all optional questions. You don't have
to answer if you don't know or you don't want to share. Do you feel that you had any barriers to your higher education
success such as working or gender or structural barriers or health or, you know, any kind of barrier you can think about?
Did you find that you had any barriers to higher education
>> Well, some attitudes. I had one chemistry teacher that had a really, he was not a very good teacher and so it really -he was very impatient with the learning process, I would say. And he only focused on the kids who were really
successful and got the material quickly and he didn't really have the patience for people who did not quickly grasp the
material. So that was discouraging.
>> OK. Did you find that you had any academic barriers such as do you think your English ability was adequate for UC
Davis? Or your English kind of level?
>> Yes.
>> OK. Any health barriers or gender barriers or family or work barriers?
>> No. I would say the only big issue that was probably could be considered a health barrier was I [inaudible] an eating
disorder throughout high school but that was probably a health barrier.
>> Definitely. Do you think that had something to do with your gender?
>> Oh yeah. I mean, I could go into that endlessly [laughing] but I mean, yes. Of course it had something to do with my
gender. But it also had something to do with expectations about the ways that a woman should behave and the high
achievement that's expected.
>> Did you find that there was any kind of racial barriers? Did you ever experience microaggressions or racism? Any
kind of aggressions in the classroom or outside?
>> Not in the classroom because my peers were similar to me in like racial and ethnic class makeup. But outside the
classroom, there was hostility with, I don't know, there were gangs and stuff at my school, so ->> Oh wow.
>> [Inaudible] And they would yell at you and you would just have to walk by them.
>> And then do you think that any of this at all kind of hampered your graduation success or do you think you graduated
very successfully -- I think the highest GPA we've interviewed so far. Do you think that had a, like a huge effect in
terms of any barriers?
>> Are you talking about high school or college?
>> Both. Anything that hampered your graduating. Did you think that anything?
>> No.
>> Did you ->> That was never really a question or an issue [laughing].
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>> Oh wow. Did you graduate in four years?
>> Yeah.
>> Oh wow.
>> But I've never -- my parents paid for my college so it wasn't really like an issue there.
>> Great.
>> I was very lucky.
>> Yeah, that's very rare. Actually now it goes into the success, right? So you are, well, it is a rising number for
southeast Asians going to college, but still we discussed earlier that it's not as high as we'd like. So you are actually
quite rare to actually do so well in college. Being of southeast Asian descent, let's talk about you in particular. Why do
you think that you made it when there were other people that for whatever reason did not graduate? What personal, what
is your personality traits that made you so successful?
>> I don't think it has very much to do with myself. I think that it has a lot to do with my class and the support that I
received and the, you know, financial support from my parents. They basically payed my entire tuition and living
expenses and I had a job but it was just kind of a -- it was just for play money. That, I would say, is the main reason that
I successfully graduated from college. The other is that there wasn't any real option to not graduate because my parents
were paying for it and they basically just [inaudible] if I didn't graduate [laughing].
>> Did your parents ->> So that was really the only option.
>> Did your parents go to college?
>> Yes, my mom went to college and my dad went to college.
>> And they went to Fresno State?
>> Correct.
>> Wow. OK. And so if you're thinking back when you're in a youth and a child, did your family cultivate any college?
Because you said there was no other choice other than going to college. But how did your family convey this to you?
Did they tell you stories? Did they encourage you? What did they say to you to say college is not a -- you know, because
this doesn't happen in other places, right? It's college is not encouraged. So what did they do as a family to kind of
enable your achievement?
>> Well education was always important. It's always been valued in my family. Above everything else, it's the most
important thing. I have [inaudible] because it's really a way to fix these later on in life.
>> Did they tell you this? Or ->> Yep.
>> Oh! OK. How did they -- they just straight told you this when you were a child? How did they -- were there other
ways of conveying this?
>> Yeah. So when we were kids and we were really little, my mom would always read to us. Literacy was very
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important. She spent a lot of time on that. And then also engaging with us as we grew older, just, you know, kind of
facilitating the more critical thinking aspect of our development. So we would always listen to NPR. We would have
newspapers in the house, any books. I was -- like there was always something to read. We'd always go to the library.
And she also had the Economist and just, around so we could read it.
>> Wow.
>> And I think she definitely made an effort. And also they gave our tutoring in high school for math for me. So that
was important. And I had some moments in college as well when I told them I was dropping out and I wanted to do
something completely different and they were like, that's not happening. I'm sorry. It's not happening. So yeah. All
along. And they helped me with the college application. The other thing that might be interesting for you is that I wasn't
initially accepted to UC Davis. I was accepted to Santa Cruz but not Davis and then my dad has a friend who is
connected at UC Davis. I think he's an admissions chancellor or something related to that. And my dad told his friend,
hey my daughter didn't get accepted, what can you do? And my dad's friend told him to tell me to appeal the decision.
So I appealed the decision and I was accepted to Davis.
>> Wow. So you seem to have very, like, activist parents in terms of education [laughing].
>> Yeah. I don't know if they're activists, but ->> Not activists. I'm sorry. Encouraging in education. Excuse me [laughing].
>> Yeah. They're very interested in having my brother and I be successful and independent from them.
>> And then did your parents ever talk about family stories or hardships where they encouraged you because of the
family hardship? Did that ever happen to encourage you to do well in school?
>> Yeah.
>> Can you give an example?
>> So yeah. Well, my mom would talk about how important education was to her family when they came over from
Vietnam and how that's really the way that they assimilated and got stability. And I think her story is more interesting
than my story because education is really the way that they, at least her and her sisters, they put value in their family.
And so her parents made sure that they went to college so they could be successful and that was their way of
assimilating, I think.
>> Great. So it seems like your family was very or is continuously very into education and your achievement. Do you
think that your community or institutional actors, I guess, do they enable you to have college success as well? For
example, we have this Hmong B-Boy Archive and these Hmong students from Fresno are saying that because they are
B-Boys, which are breakdancers, that really helped them finish college. And then we have another group of Mian
students who that -- I guess once a year Mian students will recognize high school graduates and that's kind of a very
good community kind of pusher in academics. Do you think that you had any kind of community or institutional
enablers to your academic success?
>> I wouldn't say I had anything like that.
>> Anything such as church or dance groups or friends?
>> I mean, all my friends were graduating from. They were all going. I met them all in college and in high school and
they were all high achievers. And they came from high achieving families, so there really wasn't -- if you, you know, if
you didn't, if you dropped out of high school or you dropped out of college, you were kind of an outsider.
>> Interesting. Can you talk a little more about your friends? Did that motivate you at all to stay in school and graduate?
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>> Yeah. I mean, everybody was kind of on the same track as -- like it really wasn't an option to not graduate.
>> Interesting.
>> But I didn't have any for those -- I wasn't a part of any clubs or anything.
>> When you think back at -- you said your friends and your family were good, I guess, enablers are academic success.
When you think back at UC Davis, do you think UC Davis was a warm environment towards you?
>> In what way?
>> Well, did you feel welcome? Did you feel that you were a part of the campus community? Sometimes minority
groups, particularly African American males sometimes express that, you know, they might be treated differently, right,
than other students on campus and so they don't feel as warm of an environment as other students who, you know, don't
go through the same issues. Did you find UC Davis to be warm?
>> Yes, I would say that it is about as welcoming as a large institution could be [laughing].
>> Oh!
>> With 30,000 students [laughing].
>> Wow.
>> It's just a large institution. Right? So you kind of deal with that issue. But it's not like anybody was committing hate
crimes towards me.
>> Oh wow. OK. So here, these are just, these are like the last questions where it's just yes/no questions. And just think
in your mind, do you think this would help you in your four-year graduation? Do you think that having smaller classes
would be more helpful?
>> Yes.
>> How about more co-ethnic professors, such as more Asian professors?
>> Yes.
>> What about co-ethnic classmates?
>> Yes
>> More co-ethnic clubs?
>> No.
>> No? OK. And then if you wanted to have more college success workshops, what workshops would you want?
>> I'd say probably just dealing with, like a stress management workshop.
>> Great. We could do that. Stress management workshop. OK. Anything else?
>> hmm. Time management. How to study.
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>> Time management. OK. We also can do that as well.
>> Yeah.
>> Time management and a stress. OK. Any other workshop you'd like to see?
>> Not that I can think of ->> OK.
>> Off the top of my head.
>> Great. These are things that we definitely can employ at our school. So the last question is if you have ten pieces of
advice to do well academically. A lot of students really struggle in class and you know, sometimes for whatever reason - oop -- they want to not continue. Is there any like ten pieces of advice? Or you know, whatever advice you have for the
third generation? You are second generation but the third generation [beep beep]. I'm sorry. That how -- what are ways
that they could be successful? And then also if you could give us five maybe kind of self-love [laughing] or selfguidance advice. Because you're extremely successful and I think for people listening to you I think particularly
students, they're really looking for ways of, you know, achieving success like yourself. So is there any piece of advice
you have?
>> That's a lot of pressure.
>> [Laughing] No worries. It's not pressure. I interviewed 37 other people so it's like, you know, your own. Everyone's
different. Everyone's, you know, if they're LGBT they talk about, you know, how you can combat, you know, you
know, being LGBT, Asian, and the community. Or I interview other people who have seven kids, and so they talk about
you -- so it's whatever, you know, whatever you want to throw out in advice [laughing].
>> Sure. Yeah. So I guess the first thing I would say just from -- I also run my own business with my partner. We've run
it for three years and we started it up from pretty much nothing and I would say I've learned more from doing that just
about tenacity and not giving up that I think that I can identify with people who are struggling to graduate either high
school or college and I would say how there are going to be things that seem impossible and you just can't give up. You
can't think that that's the final answer. Right? You just can't accept giving up as an option. You just have to keep going
and find a way to make it work and you have to be -- it cannot be won. Don't give up. Be gritty [laughing].
>> Be gritty. [Laughing] OK. Good advice.
>> Yeah. And the second one is be humble. You can't think that you know everything and that you're smart enough to
not have to study. It takes a lot of work to be successful and you have to do things that are boring or tedious or hard
emotionally and physically. So I think just be humble and accept, you know, I guess accept what it takes to be
successful and do it [laughing].
>> OK.
>> Even if it's humble.
>> OK. Great advice.
>> And I feel like that's a lot. I mean, ten pieces of advice. Be kind to yourself.
>> Be kind to yourself.
>> Even when you're having -- sometimes you're having a hard day. If you're dealing with something or stressed, be
kind to yourself and don't feel like you need to be happy, on top of the world every day. Sometimes you just need to be
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in that. Feel the struggle for a little while and it will motivate you to be successful, I guess [laughing]. I don't know.
>> Yeah. In terms of being kind of to yourself, are you thinking about health in terms of meditation or yoga? What are
you thinking when you think, when you say be kind to yourself?
>> I'm just talking about I have high expectations for myself and I am a perfectionist. So when I say be kind to myself,
it's like if you make mistake, everybody makes mistakes.
>> Right.
>> It's not the end of the world. You just have to learn how to work through those mistakes and how to be better next
time. And apologize if you did something that affected other people. It's probably better to, again, be humble and tell
them that you made a mistake and then that you'll do better next time and then actually learn from your mistake and
figure it out next time.
>> Great. Do you have any self-care advice on -- a lot of the students have a lot of stress [laughing].
>> Yeah.
>> And they really struggle in class sometimes concentrating because they have so much stress. Is there any self-care
advice you could give to them?
>> I find that exercise is really good.
>> Exercise. Yes.
>> Yeah. Just getting outside and even just going for a walk is really grounding. I also have a dog.
>> Oh!
>> So I play with my dog [laughing] when I get stressed out. Or I call a friend. So but yeah. Just eating healthy and
planning your meals out and not being hungry, I think if you can be an adult and plan your meals, then you know, do
that sort of thing, that also helps with not getting to the point where you're hangry.
>> Yes [laughing]. Great.
>> That's important.
>> Well I guess that's it unless you have anything else to add.
>> No, that's it. That's it.
>> So thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed and let me turn off this tape recorder.
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