Audrey Cao,
Color Brave Circle 4
I moved to the U.S. 10 years ago for college. On the first day of college, I walked down my dorm hallway and saw a blonde girl walking towards me. I had heard so much about how nice Americans were, so I decided to smile and wave at her. Even though she saw me, she kept walking and did not respond to my greetings.
This was the first time that I realized I didn’t belong to this country. I was afraid of speaking up and specifically, telling that classmate that I didn’t feel comfortable about how she ignored me and pretended I didn’t exist.
But I am not afraid of speaking up anymore. I found my voice through embracing every opportunity that I could to meet different people. At business school, I led an Asian American student organization and teamed up with 6 other Asian-related affinity groups to issue the very first statement reacting to the racist behavior in the news and even disrespectful behavior during Zoom classes during the first few months of COVID-19. I started a student movement to encourage more students to stand up and speak for themselves. There were lots of positive feedback to the movement, but there were also challenges. I had a conversation with one of my Caucasian friends and learned that some Caucasian students thought we (the Asian/Asian American student body) were overreacting to the disrespectful classroom conversations. We had a healthy debate, which just made me realize how hard it is to decide to speak up, to speak up, and then to face the consequences of speaking up. I hope to continue to speak up for what I believe in and not be afraid of the challenges along the way. I hope more people embrace these healthy debates and talk about things that are important but may feel uncomfortable to talk about.
