I didn’t expect to cry as much as I did. More than the other wins we’ve seen, probably because this was such a personal one. Being a kpop star was my biggest teenage dream. Something I fell in love with, never because I wanted to be Korean, but because mainstream media didn’t have anyone that looked like me. And kpop was the closest thing to imagining what a world with mainstream industries all being Hmong would look like. I even auditioned for kpop agencies,  and I trained by myself through YouTube because that’s all I knew how to do. But it didn’t seem like a reachable dream to me, and I guess somewhere along the way I just accepted that it was just something like make-believe. Something I wish Hmong people had, along with all the other many things. 

We all grew up watching and rooting for other Asian ethnicities—any Asian that felt like the next best representation of us. But, the time has finally come where we are again and again, seeing us, exactly as ourselves—actual Hmong representation on large platforms. And it shows just how long we’ve lived without ever seeking acknowledgement because we’ve only had the goal to survive. But now that we know that we’re capable, just as deserving, as intelligent and as talented, we are now truly taking up space in our fullest form.

I received a post in my private group, from a Hmong sister who was left by the man she devoted herself to for many years. She went on to list all the amazing things about herself–accomplishments, skills, assets that she spent her whole life honing so that she could be the perfect wife and daughter. Both in and outside of the home–personal and professional. And yet, she was here, defeated, exhausted, and at loss on how much more she needed to be, and why she was still not enough to be chosen.

Her words, trembled my heart. I could just feel her whole world like it was mine.

Because for the longest time, even as ambitious and achieving as I always was, all I wanted was to become a good Hmong wife, and a good Hmong daughter.

I know every relationship and situation is different. I know different things work for different people. I know both sides of a relationship are not perfect. But I also know how big of a difference Nakita at 15 was, from Nakita at 19, and even Nakita at 21.

So I write this, hoping it would reach a younger me out there somewhere too.

To the older men dating a teen, more than shaming, this would be my deepest plea:

To know the power of the influence you have on her and how that could change her life forever.

And that is also my biggest fear—that that is precisely what you know and you know it well.

You are not her savior and the most heroic thing you can do is to stand aside and let her grow at her own pace at her fullest capacity without the influence of you.

As our newsfeed, hearts, and minds have been filled with happiness from Sunisa’s win, she ignites a fire of hope and inspiration in us all. But at the same time, I know it can cause many of us to feel a sense of pressure, rush or confusion on what role we can play in our people’s greatness, or what next big thing we can achieve too. Some of us resent our dreams that were cut before they could even blossom. And some, heartbroken that it is too late for us to start.

But I hope to remind you today, that you don’t need to be the next Sunisa.

You don’t even need a title, a medal, or a role.

Because even if you might not be the first to do something, you just need to be the first you, and the greatest you. Starting now.

It took a recent message from my past, to really click to me just how far I’ve grown.

For the longest time, perhaps my whole life, (and largely because of society’s conditioning) I have always been longing for, waiting for, and racing to finally “get there,” wherever “there” even meant. I’m not so sure I ever stopped to really dissect that question and ask myself where on earth I was trying to “get” to and why I was in such a rush or felt so far away.

I feel like I kept making up answers along the way. That “there” was “happiness,” and “there” would be when I finally enjoyed life. At first, I thought it would be when I got accepted into college. But when I got there, I still wasn’t “there.” So then, I told myself, I’d finally be happy when I graduated college--it still wasn’t it. I thought it was a job, and that for sure wasn’t it. I truly believed it was a boyfriend, and that couldn’t be more off.

So now I was left with nothing. I had nowhere else to run to. No more rocks to turn over. I was just still. And that’s probably the exact place I finally found it.