Terry Wang, Cincinati, OH
The National Association of Asian American Professionals has opened a door to a community that I, a 22 year old who came to the US from Urumqi, China in 2015, never thought I would have access to. Because of the door being opened, I have met and have become close friends with some of, who I think, are the most passionate and most courageous people in this world. The same friends and acquaintances soon became a family to me, and that family became my biggest supporters. Coming to the US, I knew I was rainbow, I would always be labeled as a foreigner for the way I spoke English, and I had very few people to call friends. But the people in NAAAP didn’t care. To them, I was another person who had dreams of rooting himself down, who wanted to find it OK to be himself, and to add value to a society that’s giving me so much.
That is why I give back to NAAAP. So that others like me, who haven’t a place to call home yet, will find a family who will accept ze with open arms. Love comes in a shapes and sizes, and the people in NAAAP have always been and will always be a vehicle to make inclusion as equitable as possible for all of us who culturally identify as Asian and live in America.
