By Gabriel Molina-Kong, 2026 CLA Intern
There is a door to everything that has ever had an impact on your life. Some doors you always keep open, like the door to your best friend or even your favorite restaurant. But more often than not we close hundreds of doors without even realizing it, and we never open them again. When’s the last time you reached out to your freshman year roommate or your high school teacher that wrote your letter of recommendation for college?
Recently, I feel as though I’ve done far more door closing than opening. Call it growth (optimistic), laziness (pessimistic), or an inevitability of how many people I’ve met and my finite amount of time and energy to open the doors to them all (realistic): it’s just how it is for many of the people and places that once gave me community. As somber as it seems, I think it reveals the doors that matter the most to you: the ones that you constantly walk through, never forget the key, and fight to keep open.
CAUSE has become one of those doors for me. Despite the fact that I topped a V6, the CLA program was still the highlight of my summer. The experience working in a Senator’s office and the professional development from the program was perfectly integrated with a sense of community and support from everyone involved. It was my fellow interns that made each day feel like collaborating with a group of friends instead of a cohort of coworkers; it was the wisdom and mentorship from the women who ran our program: Rachel, Andrea, and Nancy; and it was the wonderfully supportive network of AAPI leaders and advocates, from the Board of Directors to the electeds in Sacramento, that made CAUSE feel like a family. And if Vin Diesel has taught me anything, it’s that you never close the door on family.
There is a world in which I didn’t do the CLA program, and I pity that version of me as he has one less door that he wants to keep open for the rest of his life. Thank you to everyone that made this program possible, and a special thank you to our sponsors!