I needed to rant a little bit. Deleted my Medium post and reposted here.
How to give back to a community that won’t accept you?
It’s tough. I honestly don’t know what to think, feel, or say to this question.
For the past 3 years, my mind has been set on this mission to help discover and develop the leaders of tomorrow, today. I’ve grown into a passion and vision that made me believe my experiences and voice can help shape a community and its emerging leaders. By providing stories of what I’ve seen and been through, what went well and what didn’t, I sought to create an environment of transfered knowledge to grow and reach new pinnacles of success and achievement. It was a mission to create and build upon the success and unsuccessful stories of others to make this next story the best one yet.
Some of you reading may think that this is an admirable vision, incredibly selfless, but inspirational and humble to say the least. After these 3 years of living this mission, I’d like to express my extreme dissatisfaction and heartbreaking moments this vision of mine has dealt me.
Each light bulb of hope, passion, and vision I saw within these people I talked to lit up. It was incredibly satisfying talking to a person one on one and seeing how my words helped guide them to their path. I’d like to tell myself that I helped “Light the Way” for them, a brief reference to a conference theme I’ve been involved with. But as time moved on, I saw these lights popping and burning out. What once was a person of great prowess and potential soon became a person too exhausted to even breathe. In some cases, the potential was never fully utilized or explored because something within those communities stunted that growth. This is where the dissatisfaction comes in…
I ran, first, as the Minnesota State Representative for the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of the Midwest. I became so enveloped in this idea that the resources and beliefs of being involved with a community beyond our own will provide not only strong networks, but strong growth and experiences that can easily be transferred and applied to the communities we belong to back home. I was not elected and my vision to unite the Minnesota Vietnamese Student Associations and community was left unsatisfied. The potential to connect and grow around the state and to the Midwest region was left unfulfilled, plans for state wide retreats or even a state Summit will never be recognized.
Moving on with a drive to improve and change the community was my next desire, to become the Vietnamese Student Association of Minnesota President. Note that this was not a second or back-up decision, but one position that I grew into wanting to become. Structurally, I wanted to improve upon VSAM’s internal system and really flesh out and establish clear and concise roles. I wanted to have VSAM emerge beyond its stagnant two years (at the time) and really drive itself as a leading cultural organization. I wanted to develop and foster the rest of incoming board to explore themselves in their roles and in their leadership journey. Lastly, to create sustainability among VSAM both culturally and as a leading college organization. Despite pushing for clearer roles and introducing heavier topics such as the “Viet Cong” band fiasco and regional to national involvement, I was once again pushed away from having any role to develop or create change within this community.
Next, I wanted to create and shape a conference to cater to the development and growth of its volunteers and it’s attendees. I explored all my past resources of leadership and event planning to apply to become the Executive Director of the 14th Annual VIA-1 Conference. That failed and I later tried to explore the strongest Programming to carry out my vision, and that too, failed. Placed in a role of no power or voice, I trudged on.
I soon applied for the position of External Vice-President for UVSA-Midwest. It was a difficult position and time. I won’t comment much on it, but the whole process realised I was not welcome. As a voice, as a representative, and and as a community member. Less and less, my voice was silenced; my ideas shot down. I followed through, but wanted to resign from future involvement and long term commitment in this organisation. Don’t get me wrong, I love the community. I wish to shape and change it. But I wouldn’t do so under pretense that I wasn’t valued.
Eventually, I found spaces where I joined on my own terms to create my own vision. The Midwest Asian American Students Union and UNAVSA-13 really explored and developed myself to be an even stronger leader than I thought possible. I explored critical social issues and learned about the APIA history that was excluded from history books. I became more organized and developed time management skills to really save my hide in professional and personal settings. These terms are now ending and soon, I’ll be at square one. This is where the final straw is at, and has been pulled…
The Asian-American Students Union. It’s a home to many APIs among the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus and an umbrella organisation to currently 17 Asian-American based affiliate organisations. I first started my journey with it and through the first few events, discovered my passion in supporting others. My voice here mattered just a little bit more here I felt, even if I was never on board. It took me 3 years, but I felt the journeys and experiences I’ve taken thus far have readied me for this one opportunity: to give back to my community with all of the experiences and passion I’ve accumulated. ASU and I have grown on separate paths, but I feel time has grown where our paths now intertwine. The key issues ASU will tackle next year will include identity, social awareness, and responsibility. I felt I finally aligned with ASU and now wished to step up to Secretary. It is in this role that I wished to create a system within ASU to create sustainability and growth for generations to come. I wanted to be the Secretary to take the best meeting minutes and notes to look back on and organise our thoughts. I wanted to be the support to each board member to determine their roles and responsibilities and organise it all in such a way that each team member will grow substantially. I have taken on positions where I was required to facilitate growth, empathise and connect, and adapt to everyone. I felt I was perfect for Secretary. It’s constitutional roles dealt with meeting minutes and email communications, but I wanted to expand and create a whole network of schedules, growth, and tasks for the board. I communicated all this at our elections with what I believe to have been a strong presence, clear voice, and absolute charisma. People afterwards approached me and commended me on my speech. Knowing in my gut that this meant a) I actually did well or b) People complimented me on the only thing they could to save up for the torment later. As it sounds, I did not attain the role to be ASU’s biggest supporter. I did and will not accomplish any goal to develop and grow leaders. I was rejected from the last community that I thought would have believed in me.
It’s heartbreaking for me to come to terms with this, but with every rejection letter and email came a new action plan, a new journey. But not this time. I don’t have a next goal or journey. Everything that I’ve done was done to give back to my communities and create a strong generation of leaders. But no one wants or accepts me. And I think it’s about time that I accept it too;
I’m just not suited to be a leader. With this vision of wanting to create this next generation of leaders, of wanting to connect and grow with them, it’s impossible. I think it’s time I start finding another reason to move forward in life.
