By Rachel Nguyen, 2025 CLA Intern
“My mother’s resilience and sacrifice gifted me the privilege of transforming my family’s history of service work into the fuel that empowers our hunger for liberation: public service.”
This quote is drawn from my essay response to CAUSE’s application question, “Why are you interested in interning here?” One week into the Cause Leadership Academy (CLA), I find my answer still evolving.
Our second orientation workshop challenged us to examine the guiding principles that inform our leadership, which are often inherited from leaders in our lives. For me, the leaders who immediately came to mind were women from the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities—the movers, shakers, laborers, and healers who have carved out space and revolution in the face of structural neglect.
Long before I entered a room with elected officials, nonprofit executive directors, and grassroots organizers this week, my mother and the women who came before me demonstrated what it means to be accountable to something larger than oneself. When public institutions failed to show up for our communities, they did: finding housing leads, offering temporary positions at nail salons, and taking care of one another’s children. They provided safety and resources for one another and worked to dismantle existing systems that disempowered and disenfranchised them.
Originally designated as Team &, my mock campaign team decided to rebrand ourselves as “AND is in our DNA.” Our candidate, Esther Lian, was inspired by her school’s slogan, which highlights the interconnected nature of its innovation and collaboration—a guiding principle for our campaign. In my own work, I am adopting a more “both/and” philosophy, advocated for by scholars Mariame Kaba and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, rather than the “either/or” mindset that often stifles imaginations of alternative futures. Running on abundance, our mock campaign explores a world beyond political scarcity. What if our communities had two suitable candidates who were willing and eager to advocate for us? What does it mean to be engaged with politics when we no longer have to resort to the lesser of two evils?
In our panel with Peter Gee, Isa Sasi, and Cevadne Lee, we learned about how the lack of granular data on the AANHPI community results in the lack of access to the health resources we need and deserve. Cevadne reminded us that “just because something is made available doesn’t mean it’s accessible.” She shared an example where health services were offered in L.A.’s Chinatown but went unused—not because they weren’t needed, but because fear, language barriers, and trust issues prevented uptake. It’s cases like these that demonstrate why we cannot push our elders to the sidelines when their politics do not mirror our own. Often, they hold the knowledge of how we’ve survived and inform how we may soon thrive. Both. And.
While race—a social construct—is not in our DNA, hope, love, and trust are. To me, working in government and pursuing public service is more than political. It is personal.
It is something worth fighting for.
It is something already in our DNA.
The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not reflect the views or positions of CAUSE or the CAUSE network.
The CAUSE Leadership Academy (CLA) for students is a nine-week, paid, internship program that prepares college undergraduates to lead and advocate for the Asian Pacific Islander community on their campuses and beyond.