In my first semester of college last fall, I had a person in two of my communications classes that I didn't know very well, but it was obvious that they were serious about their education. During the first week when we all introduced each other, I found out their name was Fhey. Their interests aligned with mine very closely. We both liked to write, had similar taste when it came to fictional men, and had an affinity for cottage core, fairy aesthetics. I was worried that I was too weird to approach them and strike up a conversation, since they always participated in class and came on time. It wasn't until my COMM 120 professor informed us of a tuition increase at the CSU level that I wanted to advocate for my education conditions. Fhey spearheaded the movement, which eventually died out because members were busy with school. However, that was my first interaction with Fhey up close and they ended up being genuinely awesome. Laid back, goofy, and a natural activist. I could talk with them about the tuition increase, systemic racism, BIPOC issues under oppressive institutions of power, and bears. Fhey really likes bears and the idea of escaping our capitalistic society by having a little cottage in the woods, away from everything. To be honest, it's also an idea I've been considering if the downfall of society is imminent, so we built up our friendship by talking about our ideal futures. My same COMM 120 professor taught us that joy is liberation and being able to imagine a better future is how we resist systems of oppression. We both wholeheartedly agree since we are both minorities who have not had the best upbringings, but we can have the best future in our heads. Fhey and I have a lot of ideas about what we can do in the future. Buying a castle in Italy, making a podcast with animatics of highlights, making a TV show of the POC solidarity we encompass, and cooking aesthetic Pinterest foods in our own kitchens. When we're not talking about the future, we usually meet up and go places together. Fhey is a huge arts person who wants to do photography, cinema, writing, voice acting, and drawing, so we go to lots of art related events. I've never had a friendship that was so involved before. Many of my friends in K-12 couldn't or didn't want to hang out with me outside of class. Sometimes I felt, due to my interests and personality, that my friends only wanted to be friends out of pity that the weird kid had no one else. This isn't the case with Fhey, where we bounce ideas off of each other and it snowballs into something grander. I love going on adventures throughout the city with them, I enjoy walking around campus to help them take pictures, and I feed into their impulsive thoughts to buy super cute earrings from Etsy. They've taught me the importance of true companionship in an area where we're not locals. I'm there to encourage and hype them up, as all friends should. Without Fhey in my life, I don't think I would've been able to have an outlet to be myself or find joy in a joyless environment.

My minority experience is complex and multifaceted. As the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants to Southern California, I am extremely privileged to say that I had an opportunity to connect with my roots due to my proximity to Little Saigon and Westminster, but it was a rare treat to be able to go. I took on the role of translator and American culture connoisseur in my household from a young age. It is a burden that should have never been placed on me as a child, especially as my dad had been in the States for 8 years before I was born. The immigrant experience will ring a bell for a lot of minority groups and has set many children up to resent their parents. Thankfully, this is not my experience, and I believe that my moderately okay relationship with my parents allowed me to pursue my path instead of haphazardly choosing my path out of spite. Growing up, I was often the only Asian in a class of Hispanics. This resulted in a lot of teasing, being called Chinese and ching chong when I didn't know anything. My parents were struggling financially at the time due to the recession, so the expectation that I would become a doctor was compounded by financial hardship. As I was promoted from elementary to middle school, I didn't want to conform to what my parents wanted of me anymore. I wanted a career in the arts and had wild fantasies of becoming a famous fashion designer or moving to Japan to work on the next big anime series. An Asian who was creative instead of brainy didn't sit right with my friends or family, so there were many backhanded comments made to me about how going into the arts is a great waste of my intellect. I shrugged it off as my parents being disappointed that they weren't going to get a money-making daughter who could ensure them a comfortable retirement. It wasn't until I got into high school that I realized that a career in the sciences wasn't as bad as I had made it out to be. During the lockdown, I went down a rabbit hole of documentaries on Netflix and watched many films about archaeology, human history, and anthropology. When I did research into what anthropology, it was as if I had found the Holy Grail. Biological anthropology involved piecing together bones, excavating, and filling in the holes with prior history knowledge. I was less ecstatic to figure out that anthropology as an academic field is predominantly white. It doesn't sit right with me that we lack so many anthropologists of color, so I decided to want to be that change. Anthropology doesn't pay much unless you have a Ph.D, which is something that is not a current plan of mine as of right now. However, I do wish to receive a Master's in Anthropology once I graduate from San Francisco State University. The reason I am not majoring in it as my undergraduate studies is because I want to have a career to fall back on in case an undergrad in Anthropology doesn't rake in any jobs for me. All and all, being a first-generation minority Southeast Asian college student has inspired me to walk the path of anthropology to make sure its anthropologists are as diverse as the cultures of the world.