“Here I was seeking refuge in a new country, unable to speak its language, and unsure of my future. We were robbed, beat up, and yelled at for many different reasons.”
“It had never occurred to me that they would not accept us because of race—because the woman who loved us, took care of us, and protected us had a Chinese face!”
“Focus on what you want: one, you love your parents. Two, you want them safe and not let anything bad happen. Three, you want them secure. And then show up.”
“What if you are change itself? You are the change. You make the change. You create the change. And you lead the change. Others would try to manage change, but you created that change.”
“My best vision for the world is every single human being on the planet gets educated about sex, their bodies, and has a place that’s safe to talk about their sexuality with during their hardest times.”
“It’s so easy to be hopeless. It’s so easy to give up. We need to love one another more deeply and fiercely than this world hates us.”
“My kids are 100% Filipino and 100% Athabascan. And if people say that doesn’t make sense, we teach our kids that it doesn’t need to make sense because superpowers don’t make sense.”
“A lot of my process comes from just honoring how ridiculous whatever I’ve come up with may sound and then finding a way to get it done and putting together the right minds to get it done.”
“This is a playground if you take advantage of everything around, especially the community. And surf is free! I don’t gotta pay nobody.”
“They think I’m taking away their jobs. But I’m also helping, you know? I’m filling this teacher shortage here. If nobody will be in this position, nobody will help these kids.”
”Pneumonia is an infection. When it sets in, things get worse. The kids begin to have a fever; they start panting for air. At this point, treatment requires hospitalization.”
“I don’t know what would have happened otherwise if strangers did not help us.”
“I don’t even know if I’ll be able to afford the pneumonia vaccine. Our house was demolished and we’re still waiting to be relocated.”
