In the last few years, I’ve felt compelled to reconnect with my culture through food. One day, I was walking through the supermarket with my mom on the phone, looking for an ingredient to one of her recipes. As she repeated the name and I wandered the aisles loud and lost, an older Vietnamese woman came up to me, took my hand, and led me to it. “Đây nà con,” she said.

To me, there's nothing better on a cold winter day than making your favorite recipes from home and aunties worrying about you in the vegetable aisle.

I’ve never been one to shy away from being forthright about my core values (some of which you may have already picked up on). And I am proud to have volunteered for grassroots orgs like VietRise fighting for immigration and human rights for all displaced people.