By Rachel Nguyen, 2025 CLA Intern
I was raised by an incredible network of nail technicians who instilled in me the passion, confidence, and care I need to get in front of the door to a career in public service, and that night of Summer Soirée, I carried their stories with me as I shook the beautifully manicured hands of mayors, state assemblymembers, scholars, and organizers—all of whom have been incredibly supportive in helping me get my foot in the door. Like light, land, and water—the earliest forms of community and the core elements of the Soirée venue and theme—I remembered that we cannot win, grow, and thrive in isolation.
Esther wore her mother’s cheongsam as a representation of her heritage and the quiet, yet unwavering sacrifices made by fellow immigrant families across AD-49. In solidarity, I wore my grandmother’s áo dài, Sarah wore her grandmother’s hanbok, Stephanie wore a Filipiniana bolero, Zack wore his grandfather’s chongsam, Kyle wore an Aloha shirt from Mānoa, and Paolo wore a barong. Histories of migration and survival are woven into the threads of the fabric we carried on our shoulders.
In our session with JP, a culture bearer and artist, we learned that the LA River has always been a meeting point of ecosystems, histories, and communities. The Vietnamese term nước translates to both "water" and "country." Standing at the LA River Center, I felt the double pull of nước: the literal water beneath my feet and the figurative homeland that my family crossed oceans to leave, yet never entirely left behind. As Soirée Campaign Manager, my role was to guide the flow, making sure every handshake, introduction, and conversation added force to the collective current our campaign was building.
My cohort brought forward two incredible candidates: rooted like land in the histories that shaped them, flowing like water in their ability to connect distant points into a shared basin, and sparking like light to inspire others to join the work. I left the Soirée confident that our literal and ancestral rivers will continue to meet, flow together, and carve the future we deserve to inhabit.