Trigger Warning: The content of this story might be emotionally distressing for people who have experienced racial discrimination or sexual harassment. Please practice self-care as needed.
Yesterday, I joined 2,000 other people virtually for Hollaback’s harassment response training. After absorbing the shock of the Atlanta spa shootings over the past couple of weeks and then hearing some very young witnesses testify in the Chauvin trial this past week here in Minneapolis, my heart has been breaking into a thousand pieces. I signed up for both Hollaback’s bystander and harassment response training because I needed to find ways to put those pieces back together.
A couple of key strategies I learned was to “Reclaim Your Space” and “Practice Resilience.” While it has been heartbreaking to read the stories of friends and family experiencing racism and discrimination, it has also been inspiring watching them break the silence and reclaim their space. And it has been healing to know that I’m not alone — and that together we become both more resilient and resolute in improving the future for the next generation.
As I look at pictures of my niece, I pray that her future will be much brighter and so I’m going to reclaim my space now and share some of my story.
My parents were part of the first wave of refugees who immigrated to the U.S. in 1975. They settled in a small, farming community in Kansas that had a large KKK contingency. We were one of the few families of color in that town. Although I am eternally grateful for the many amazing people who welcomed and helped my family start anew in the U.S. when we literally had nothing, we also have shadows and memories of being visited by people who clearly did not want us to be there so we stayed inside a lot and didn’t answer the door for fear of who or what might be outside.
When I was older, my dad got a better paying job in a bigger town. But the discrimination didn’t stop there. Men at my dad’s factory used to throw trash on the floor for fun and tell him to pick it up, even though that was not part of his job description and he technically had the same position as them. My mom suffered from burnout when she was in high school back in Vietnam, so when I was young I helped her complete her degree by studying for the GED and was proud to help her get a decent paying job as an assembler. However, she suffered from sexual harassment from her supervisor in that job. Seeing the stark contrast between a self-determined Mom who owned a successful fabric business back in Vietnam with the one who suffered harassment at a job that was both physically and emotionally harmful broke my heart.
As a young person, I felt both frustrated and powerless that I couldn’t help my parents more in ending the humiliation and harassment. This was on top of the bullying I was experiencing myself as a student who looked different from my classmates and could not afford the clothes or things that might help me blend in more. That’s when I became determined to study and work as hard as I possibly could so that I might be able to help end the suffering of both my family and others in my community.
However, I learned at an early age to keep my head down as I studied and worked. When I was young, my parents joined 150 others in the Vietnamese diaspora to protest the visit of several people they viewed as war criminals. Watching my very petite mom on the megaphone rallying 150 people with her powerful words inspired me to do my part by writing an op-ed that was published in the city newspaper. The visit was marketed as a cultural exchange, so I merely suggested in the op-ed that if the coordinators wished to have a cultural exchange, that perhaps they should start first by having an exchange with the Vietnamese diaspora in their own community to understand why they might be sensitive to a visit by this particular delegation. After the op-ed was published, I received threatening phone calls and people in strange cars driving by our house. I was in 8th grade at the time.
I inherited my mom’s entrepreneurial spirit and I used to fill notebooks with all of my business ideas. In middle school, I found out about a free program for young people who wanted to start a business. I signed up and that’s when I wrote my first business plan. I submitted it for a business plan competition and was the only middle school student selected to pitch — the other finalists were all in high school. I worked really hard and ended up winning the pitch competition.
For the summer portion of the program, I had the opportunity to participate in an experience at an investment bank. We learned about investment banking and developed our own investment portfolios based on real companies (but with make believe money). At the end of the summer, the students with the top performing portfolios won a trip to New York City to visit the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ. I won the competition along with a high school senior, so the two of us and the two investment bankers assigned to be our mentors for the summer flew to NYC.
It was my first time in a city of that size and I loved it. We stayed at the New York Athletic Club, which the New York Times reported in 1989 was a “club [that] had voluntarily agreed to end the two-year legal battle it had waged to remain a male bastion.” I was the only female on the trip but at the time I thought I blended right in because I was wearing a suit. However, I later realized that was not the case when we had to pile into a cab and one of the taxi drivers assumed I was the wife of one of the investment bankers. Keep in mind that I was only in middle school at the time.
Towards the end of the trip, my “mentor” and I were talking and he told me that he thought I was “too nice” and not tough enough to be in the business world. I was confused because I had worked just as hard, if not harder, than anyone else and my investment portfolio spoke for itself. I don’t think I acted differently from the other student on the trip and I didn’t hear anyone telling him that he was “too nice” to be in the business world. What did being nice have to do with anything? Shouldn’t business owners provide excellent customer service and be supportive of their team members? I later learned that other femme entrepreneurs, even Sara Blakely (Spanx Founder), were told similar things when they started. It didn’t make sense to me though because I felt like the toughest people I know in the world are often women.
There were times I tried to change myself, but I later realized after learning about social entrepreneurship at Harvard that perhaps it’s not necessarily I who should evolve, but the unsustainable and extractive economic system that does not encourage people who are “nice” or “good” or ethical to thrive.
Looking back on this, I realize that “too nice” might have also been code for a lot of things. Asian women are often stereotyped as being quiet and submissive. I even had a professor who ignored the Asian women in the classroom, calling on the men in the room more. I could have maybe dismissed it as him not seeing our hands because the arms of the men in the class might have been longer and easier to spot in the crowd. But then he had the nerve to tell us during our midpoint check-ins that we needed to speak up more in class. We made the point that we had been trying to speak up more but were not being given the opportunity. It got to the point where our classmates tried to support us by pointing at us and showing the professor that we had our hands raised and should be called upon.
I think the most ironic thing about this stereotype is that like my mom and many Asian women I know, I am not a quiet or submissive person. I may not always shout, take up too much space, offend, or act aggressively, but I definitely speak my mind. That same professor who told me I was too quiet earlier later told me how impressed he was by the powerful speeches I delivered for the final project and our graduation ceremony. Like my mom on her megaphone commanding the attention of 150 people, I inherit my gift of speech and communication from her. And like her, I’m often the one challenging the status quo and asking the “difficult questions” rather than just checking the boxes or passing the buck.
And my mom comes from a long line of very powerful Asian women who were not quiet or submissive, like the Trưng sisters and Lady Triệu, who actually rode elephants and led armies of people to fight off those attempting to conquer their land. In fact, scholars think that Vietnam was once a matriarchal society.
But I do think many of us at some point or another have been socialized to make ourselves small, whether from outright intimidation or through more subtle ways. And while I used to think that I could shield myself and my loved ones from that through studying hard and rising in the ranks professionally, I started to realize that I can encounter this no matter where I go. Even as a diplomat at the U.S. Department of State, where my job was to represent the President and U.S. citizens overseas, I still had people asking me where I was “really from” even though I was born and raised in Kansas, the very heart of America.
More threatening than questioning my nationality were the unwanted advances. I tried to dress in a frumpy manner like baggy suits so I didn’t draw attention to myself but that didn’t always stop people from catcalling or following me. Even when I was wearing a baggy hoodie with headphones on, a man on the subway stared straight at me and started masturbating. I looked around me trying to see if others might help, but seeing no one interested in aiding me, I quickly got off at the next stop and ran home. In hindsight, I wished I had reported the incident so that it might not happen again to some other person, but at the time I was so shaken I didn’t know what to do.
Even as I advanced in my career and achieved C-level positions when I thought I would be taken more seriously, I still had men making unwanted advances at professional events — even when other people were around. I always froze, not knowing what to say or do and hoping that someone would help.
I later learned that it didn’t matter how you dressed or what you did, because these acts were not so much about attraction for the perpetrator but more about power. Perpetrators often target people they perceive to be vulnerable, whether it’s because of their physical stature or their age or their inability to get out of the situation etc. They feel like they can get away with their behavior because they think they are more “powerful” than you.
Knowing my own mom’s story of harassment, I was determined to learn as much as I could and protect myself, and hopefully help others as well. But I still ended up in a situation in my life where I had to file for a protection order. Thankfully I had a community of support and a pro bono lawyer who helped me through the process, as well as a very understanding supervisor who gave me time off to attend the court hearing and secure the protection order I needed.
Going through that process made me realize why so many of these cases go unreported, because not everyone has an understanding boss or is able to take time off from work. Even with my education, fluency in English, and community of support, the experience rattled me so I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like for those who are not as fortunate. But I definitely made myself smaller after this event.
Even though I have felt drawn to a more public life serving the community, like Brené Brown I often played it safe early in my career — working hard to excel but never dreaming too big or rocking the boat too much. I’ve always been the best supporting actress or the person behind the scenes making things happen — never the lead. Instead of becoming a “thought leader” or a “social media influencer,” I was a ghostwriter and I posted anonymously from organizational accounts.
I told myself this was prudent because I could protect my privacy, have more impact, and accomplish more if others take the credit. While these things may or may not be true, I also know that deep down I silenced myself because I was afraid to step into the arena. Over time my personal experiences accumulated and I went from being born a bold and courageous girl with big dreams to someone who was scared to let her light shine. I had let the shadows win.
Caring for my mother-in-law (another strong and powerful woman) during the last few years of her life opened my eyes to the fact that our time here on Earth is just too short to let others dim your light or dull your sparkle. It became my mantra: let your light shine and help others shine so that together we sparkle. The resilience and toughness that both my mom and my mother-in-law showed despite all of the adversity they were dealt in life, combined with this mantra, gave me the courage to finally start my own business, We Sparkle.
We Sparkle is a social enterprise or a public benefit corporation building a stronger and more inclusive economy by equipping underestimated entrepreneurs with the AI-powered tools they need to succeed. I believe that AI is one of the biggest technological leaps we’ll make since the Internet and I want to ensure that it is designed and developed in a way that is both accessible and not based on historically biased information so that vulnerable populations are not left behind, as they have been in past economic revolutions.
I’m focused on underestimated entrepreneurs because I have seen, both personally and in my previous role as Chief of Strategic Initiatives at Meda (a community development financial institution or CDFI that helps minority entrepreneurs succeed), the positive impacts that starting a business can have on an individual as well as their family and community when it comes to income, self-determination, and quality of life.
Women of color are the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs (out of both desire and out of necessity due to layoffs or lack of job opportunities), but their revenues are not on par with their peers, and that gap is widening. If we could close that gap, it would add 4 million new jobs and $981 billion to the U.S. economy.
This opportunity excites me and motivates me and it is why I’ve dedicated my social venture toward helping more underestimated entrepreneurs (especially women of color like my mom) access our tech tools to let their light shine and start their own businesses. I may not have been able to help my parents as much as I had wished when I was younger, but I feel so much joy now when I see people using our software to follow their dreams and grow their businesses.
My own entrepreneurial journey has had ups and downs, especially with launching during a global pandemic. However, this pandemic, the murder of George Floyd here in Minneapolis, and the Atlanta spa shootings have made me even more determined to continue my work because the problem has only become more exacerbated and created even more need.
I am the Entrepreneur in Residence at Junior Achievement of the Upper Midwest (JAUM), where I teach middle school and high school students how to start and run a business. I am amazed by the great work they’ve achieved this year despite the pandemic and the social unrest we’ve been experiencing and I’m constantly inspired by the wisdom of young people.
In fact, one of the proudest moments of my life was the time I volunteered to tutor a young boy whose family had just immigrated from Vietnam. He was shy and struggling in school, but after coordinating a party for his class where we taught them about the country where he was born, he announced to his class that he actually preferred to be called by his true, Vietnamese name instead of the one he had adopted when he came to the U.S.
When I think of him and my JAUM students and I see the pictures of my niece, I feel hopeful and I become even more determined to wake up every day with the courage to step into the arena and join my brothers and sisters in building a better future. As someone who grew up in the Catholic faith, I’ve been doing a lot of reflection during this Holy Week — thinking about all the sacrifices my parents and others have made to create a better future and all of the people who have let their light shine and shown their true selves. Despite all of the pain we inflict on each other as humans, I remain hopeful as I look forward to Easter and I listen to a song my husband recently wrote called, We Will Rise.
According to Brené Brown, “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen…The root of the word courage is cor — the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” For me that means even if one’s heart is broken. Perhaps for me that is the only way I may be able to heal and mend after these many months and years of heartache.
Thank you to everyone who has inspired me by being courageous and sharing their own stories as they are able, and for showing up in countless other ways for those who need support.
Thank you for reading my story and helping me feel seen.
