Wishing everyone a very happy AAPI Heritage Month! For the majority of my career, I’ve been shy about publicly sharing my heritage and personal leadership stories, because it always felt like I was taking space in an already crowded conversation. Who would care? Why does my story matter? Someone else will do it. It wasn’t until I started to receive unprompted reach outs from students asking how I navigated my career and family obligations & expectations as an Asian leader, that it struck me – if not me, then who?
So in this spirit, I wanted to share a recent moment that made me feel so proud of my Korean heritage. Last Friday, I took my two daughters (10 & 12) to a Kpop concert for ENHYPEN (#iykyk) and let me tell you, it was insane in the best way! An entire stadium full of non-Korean fans dancing and singing in KOREAN!!! I never imagined in my lifetime I'd get to experience such a phenomenon.
We’ve come such a long way and while there’s so much more work to do, the fact that thousands of people can come together to share their love of a culture and music not of their own, to me, signals something quite hopeful.
I welcome others to share their personal story or proud moment in the comments, and that we continue to celebrate AAPI stories all year round.
#AAPI