"Watch out in Chinatown….” Warned my dad, letting his sincere worry and his black and white perspectives weigh on the stress of each syllable. Because Dad was born and raised amongst Chinese people on Chinese soil, in less than affluent Chinese neighborhoods, I was initially confused as to which aspect of his racial, social, and economic bias I was to contend with this morning.  Mom, who sought to soften the brewing exchange, whispered, “Remember when Baba owned those stores.  The...

"Ngal ba dyad bsad—Work together with vigor, and meet the challenge of hardship," offered Tenzin, a young Tibetan refugee, as the Branson Asian Student Alliance (ASA) members keenly peered into her school in India through a projected video.  After fundraising to sponsor one year of Tenzin's education, I knew why encouraging cultural curiosity was invaluable.  From Branson students working with the Chinatown community in alleyway cleanup projects to fostering Tibetan refugee education, as ASA president, I bridge the gap...

I've always had an interesting relationship with languages. Growing up in a bilingual household, English casually morphs into Mandarin over the dinner table as the bumbling Wang household communicates. Extended family dinners add an extra element of challenge in the form of generation gaps, forcing me to adapt as younger cousins practice newly learned English, and hard-of-hearing grandparents speak in crisp Mandarin with interwoven Taiwanese. Both my parents minored in Japanese and grew up speaking Taiwanese, and my maternal great...