I never thought I'd see myself in a national print magazine, let alone a 4 page spread! Still in a bit of disbelief. Feeling very grateful for the opportunity to share my voice, story, and perspective with the NYLON platform. It's my first national print feature!
I remember reading teen / fashion mags growing up and thinking, would be kind of cool to see myself in here. then I thought, but I'm not white, not rich, not a tall skinny model, and I'm not passionate about make-up/fashion/celebrity lifestyles (all things that seemed to dominate the pages). When the age of social media "influencer" blew up, I thought, would be kind of cool to get free stuff and have people pay attention to you. But then I thought, you don't have enough Instagram followers because you don't post enough pics and you simply don't have the patience to curate a "proper" social media strategy. Moral of the story here (for myself) is don't worry about the external, worry about the internal. continue working on yourself, your mind, your heart, your hustle -- put it out into the world, and those who take notice will take notice. Don't change who you are to fit the mold. because i'm in NYLON talking about Asian American history, activism, Vietnam War, immigrant hustle, and more. do you, boo. ✨ Major thanks to the talented team of women I had the honor of working with @atoosamoinzadeh @gibaela, thank you Nylon Magzine for giving my voice a platform
Find my friends + faves mentioned in the feature -- of course I had to take the opportunity to share the shine with my incredible community of change makers, culture shifters, entrepreneurs, and mentors: The Starliner, The Flavr Blue/Hollis Audrey, Still Mind Collective/Jarell Perry, Johnny Dep (Danny Bridge Jen Sar, they edited your names out, sorry!), Lucy's Vietnamese Kitchen, Jeff Chang, Beau Sia, Monica Sok, Mixtape Coffee, UCLA Asian American Studies Department, Artists For Humanity, (Jason Talbot, Rob Gibbs, Richard Frank), NBC Asian America, Coalition for APA Youth (Peter Kiang, Tri Quach, AASO - UMass Boston).
