Seeing other kids with blonde hair and crying to my mom about it because I wanted the same kind of hair as Cinderella.

My school had no other Asian students, so oftentimes my classmates would be unfamiliar with the food I brought for lunch and make comments on it.

I started to translate for my parents around seven years old.

There weren't many American snacks around my house, so my most common choice of chips growing up was shrimp chips.

I was never happier than when I would wake up before school to find my mom making bánh xèo for breakfast.

My favorite drink growing up was sinh tố bơ. A lot of my friends had never tried it before, but many ended up liking it.

Though more of a dessert than a drink, I used to sneak cups of just the milk in chè thái when I was little.

I had many family members still living in Vietnam; as I grew older, some of them immigrated here. My aunt's family lived with us for about a year after their move from Ho Chi Minh City, so I was able to learn more about the culture from my cousins.

(đại diện truyền thông)

As a kid, I didn't see much Asian-American representation in the media or the kids' shows I used to watch.

One of the characters I do distinctly remember loving, however, was a girl named Musa; she was in a cartoon about fairies called Winx Club. There used to be episodes focusing on each fairy's respective home planet, and hers was based off of China.