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Photo | Becca Nguyen

Faith Nguyen: Future Plans

In the past year, the closing of small local Asian-American businesses has left senior Faith Nguyen unsettled. Many of which she would visit prior to the pandemic.  

“Living in a land where the dominant culture isn’t matched to your culture, it’s really important to be able to connect with that through food or whatever else,” Nguyen said. “So seeing those kinds of places go away is definitely hard.”

Nguyen identifies as a second-generation Vietnamese immigrant. Her grandparents fled South Vietnam shortly after the city of Saigon fell during the Vietnam War. Leaving with their seven children, one of whom is her father, they came to America. 

“They were displaced to a refugee camp in California, where breakfast was two boiled eggs, and somehow made it to Virginia,” Nguyen said.

When Nguyen’s grandparents arrived in America, they worked on farms and did any job they could to support their family.  

“I personally only know privilege, and my family knows the opposite, so that’s made me grateful for everything I have,” Nguyen said. “ I’m a product of the whole concept of the American dream, and I definitely want to live that out and make sure that their sacrifices were worth it.” 

Nguyen believes that her success is a collection of the sacrifice of generations before her. 

“Western culture is incredibly individualistic, it’s all about finding your own path and being your own person,” Nguyen said. “East Asian culture is especially very collectivist. The things you do are for the pride of your family or your larger community. It is less about the individual than it is the group.”

All the hard work Nguyen puts forth in her academics and athletics is a result of what she was taught by her father from a young age.

“My father has always been the biggest proponent of  ‘it doesn’t matter where you started, if you work hard, you can reach the next level,’” Nguyen said. 

Growing up in Loudoun County, Nguyen said her peers often faced few to no consequences for teasing and mocking Asian students.

 “I kind of just had to be comfortable with an entire race of people being degraded with very little repercussion,” Nguyen said. 

The white majority of the county made Nguyen greatly appreciate diversity.

“It’s really, really made me value diversity, “ Nguyen said. “It’s made me really appreciate the fact that there are other cultures out there that I don’t know much about, but I would love to learn about. Just kind of not necessarily assimilating or trying to fit into a certain category, like having those differences and different perspectives, is super amazing.”

Being surrounded by a diverse group of people was a big factor in Nguyen’s process  when deciding which college to attend in the fall.

“It’s almost relieving seeing people that look like you and seeing people that look totally different than you,” she said. ”And so that was a huge thing that I was looking for when I was looking for colleges. It’s to be in a place where diversity is really valued.”

I kind of just had to be comfortable with an entire race of people being degraded with very little repercussion,

Nguyen said she hopes to go into a career that directly or indirectly helps people.

 “I really want to focus my architectural studies on sustainability and accessibility,” Nguyen said. “Like making housing more easily accessible to low-income people through finding new low-cost materials or more effective designing, all in the hopes that more people have access to homes.”

Nguyen thinks her desire to learn about architecture is connected with her grandparents and their immigration story.

“I feel like that kind of brings me back full circle to my grandparents, who had to flee their own home, to a place where they had nothing and so on,” Nguyen said. “As much as I am looking to the future, knowing that story in the back of my head is always pushing me to kind of do good in the world.”

Nguyen takes part in her culture through community and family affairs. 

“Sometimes there’s festivals out in Tyson’s (Corner) where all the Vietnamese people gather, and we eat all of this Vietnamese food, and there’s these dragon dances for us,” Nguyen said. 

Drummers, dragon dancers, and other performers make their way through a crowd of people at the Tysons VietFest, a celebration of Vietnamese heritage. (Provided by Faith Nguyen)

She describes the atmosphere of the festivals as “lively” and “an amazing thing to be a part of.”  

Nguyen appreciates the moments she’s able to spend with others that also share her heritage. She said that after the distress that the Vietnamese community has gone through, she  finds beauty in moments of unity.

“With how much suffering has occurred in that culture, it’s amazing to just to bring everyone together and just appreciate how far we’ve come.”

 Food also plays a large role in the connection Nguyen has with her culture. A Vietnamese dish that she favors is called Bò Lúc Lắc, a traditional hot dish containing tossed beef, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, pepper and soy sauce. 

“Vietnamese food is all so clean. There’s hardly anything fried. Here, you might eat something and feel gross afterwards, but Vietnamese food is not like that,” Nguyen said. “You eat it, and you feel great.”

Home made bowls of Pho, the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup, for family dinner on Lunar New Years.

Nguyen explores and learns more about her culture through traditions and holidays.

“Every New Year, we gather at my grandparents’ house and eat a lot of food, and we play this sort of gambling game with change that my grandparent’s saved throughout the year, and all the kids play,” Nguyen said. “It’s sort of a game of luck, but it’s super fun.”

On the Lunar New Year, the Vietnamese have a tradition of giving small amounts of money in red envelopes that are considered full of luck. The  money is called Li xi, and it is given to the children as a blessing of luck and goodness in the new year. 

Vietnamese-American children gather around Bầu cua tôm cá (“gourd crab shrimp fish”) a dice gambling that is typically played on Lunar New Year. (Provided by Faith Nguyen)

“My grandpa always gives a speech. It’s very broken English, but it’s like, ‘We’ve had a year, it’s been a great year, we’re living in America,’” Nguyen said.

Despite the current societal climate, she recognizes the privilege of the rights she’s been given as an American citizen.

 “And sometimes I do get really frustrated about politics and stuff, but something I really think about a lot is that I’m so grateful to even be able to vote for a president, and that’s something that has always stayed with me,” Nguyen said. “Reminding me every year that not only is it a celebration of my family and the new year, but it’s also a chance to look back and reflect and be grateful.”

 Nguyen feels that Asian hate has deep roots in the country.

“Casual racism becomes violence,” Nguyen said. “It’s one thing for there to be the attacks. The thing that makes it especially frightening is not just an Asian woman getting hit in the face. It’s getting told, ‘Ch–k, go back to your country’ and then punching them in the face. It’s just this racist attitude being portrayed in the media since forever, which is now coming out in a violent way.”

The slur Nguyen referred to is an English-based word that is used against those who appear East Asian. It originated in the early 20th century when Chinese immigration was considered a threat to North Americans even though the West Coast wanted the Chinese workers in the midst of a labor shortage. The word would eventually became a worldwide slur used against the Asian community as a whole. 

In 2020, despite the 7% drop in the number of  hate crimes  in the US,  anti-Asian hate crimes spiked to almost an 150% increase

Casual racism becomes violence,

 “I don’t know if there’s a direct solution to just end this all, but I think recognizing hate crimes as hate crimes rather than just crimes is an important piece of it,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen fears that one day it might be her family who experiences a hate crime.

“It’s a little disheartening, and it’s a little scary because one day it could be one of my family members,” Nguyen said. 

However, Nguyen feels the support that the Asian community is receiving is a step in the right direction.

“It’s cool seeing all the people who are rallying to support a group of people who previously never had that support,” she said.

 Nguyen believes that being Asian American is all about overcoming and always trying. 

“Being Asian American is being different in all the best ways. It’s working hard. It’s a model minority myth that you gotta fight,” Nguyen said. “Being Asian American is great, I would not change it. It means who I am and it means all the different things that everyone whose Asian American is and all the things we are together. All of my life is being Asian American, and all the things that I do are that.”

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