I'm from California originally. I'm from Vietnam. I was born in Vietnam and my family moved to California when I was like about 7. It was a very sterile environment that was difficult to be creative in a way that would deviate from the norm. It was very lovely weather. All that stuff. It was very bubbled though, very small town mentality, very provincial. That kind of has to do with how I became into my own identity in terms of just trying to find the right place and the right people and the right, anything. I didn't feel comfortable there. It didn't feel like home.

One thing I can call upon is my friends being 5'5. I was big for a lot of the Asians in the community and not being two digit pounds, 80, 90 pounds. There wasn't that explicit pressure, but you got commented on a lot, you know, it's like, "Oh, you're so much bigger." "Oh, you're growing." "Oh, blah, blah, blah." Or even, shopping with my friends, their size 0, 2, 4, and I'm like 6, 7, 8. Even a lot of my white friends were more petite as well. That was one kind of othering experience. Because my body was different and a combination of the community commenting on the "bigness" of my body compared to the asian archetypal body and my own insecurities, I felt my body was parsed out and judged a lot. It made me even more self aware of how I was benign perceived. Sometimes I was very aware that my body was the kind of body that should not look good in certain things. I grew into self confidence and embraced my personality so it the clothes and fashion came across differently than people expect. It challenged me to lean into the uncomfortable or insecure side and blow it wide open. I then just learn accept myself as is in whatever judgement there is, and being very visible & accept that the things I like make me stand out more. It's funny because these girls that I would meet and become friends with, there was a certain level of Zoo observation and backhanded compliments there as well. It's like, "Oh, well that looks good on you. I didn't, I could never pull that off or something."

I was too much. My personality was too much and, when I have bipolar manic episodes it made my personality exponentially more "too much". When I'm manic, I'm bursting at the seams with creativity and boldness in expression. I was too much in a lot of ways, but especially personality wise for the Asian community, besides othering myself with the physical aspects of it. It was just always this, this, this, um, undercurrent of, something's not quite there. I didn't have the opportunity to create the same richness of relationships, I didn't have the opportunity to create the same richness with a lot of the community that I wanted, but also I couldn't do it because there was always something not quite right. And it kind of dragged through college. And the more I came into myself and started expressing myself more through fashion, my 20s, I felt more othered, I felt looked at and scrutinized more. I mean, I was very visible. And I was always overachieving and I'm also bipolar. It just felt the best I can give is very much like a zoo where somebody is commenting you and they're seeing you, which clearly establishes that you're not in the same area that they are, like everyone else is looking at you. It was an uneventful childhood, but at the same time, it was always too much or too little or too something, but just never quite what they were wanted me to be or expected me to be.

Vintage started in California for my interest in it. There's a big rockabilly 1950s subculture there. So that was where it started. And it was just very interesting also. Cause like, when I was little, you watch reruns of, "I love Lucy" or something. It was like, "Oh, like, look at all those cute silhouettes and stuff." And so that started there. But then the idea for a lot of people in the area and especially in an immigrant family as well, is that like, "Why are you wearing other people's clothes?" You know, that's, that's dirty. Maybe just culturally culturally in the Vietnamese community versus being in an immigrant community. I think that's more correct to say it's more of like the Vietnamese community. Um, it's just gross. They just think it's gross. Like, it's used. It's somebody got rid of it and now you're picking it up. Actually, I think it ties back to the immigrant experience when we first moved here. My parents had been dentists in Vietnam and they grew up very poor and rural in Vietnam before. So they made it big for themselves in Vietnam. And they left all that behind to start over in California. So we did go to Goodwill. We did go to these used clothing stores to buy stuff when we first moved here. And I think there's a stigma around that. And there's that association with that, like, "You gave up everything, you started over, you're on the bottom. So you have to do this." So if you have now risen from that, why would you go back to that on top of the typical cultural? Like, it's gross.

Then I visited New York once. And it was just chaotic and everyone was doing whatever and everything was a mess, but everything was so alive and, and alive with their own energy. And no one blinked an eye, and on top of that, not only could you just do whatever you want to be, whatever you want, but there were other people who are minded. There was that camaraderie that I didn't feel when I was in California. So the chance that I got to leave California was to go to grad school. This, not cultivating my identity, but being able to really come into myself in all aspects of my life. There were decisions during my 20s where, as meeting all these people, I was socializing so much, you know, going from a strict family of never doing anything, going anywhere, to being, I am on my own in New York in my 20s. I might have discovered fashion and styling and vintage and all that stuff in the beginning in high school or college. But I would say the more serious or more real about getting into fashion and clothes and all that stuff was probably in my 20s when I was able to just leave everything behind in California, like all the baggage of those experiences there. It was coming into racial identity, class, just everything. I've always had a hard time with fitting in. I was always popular, but I always had a hard time fitting in and feeling belonged. That just comes naturally to being in New York, fashion just happened to be a convenient vehicle to be able to explore my identity and explore myself and the way I lived my life. Fashion just happened to be a very fun one, a much richer medium.

I'm much bigger than I was in my 20s, and even now, I get that sometimes, but it's much less of a negative. I wanted to reclaim my space again and walk in with a certain armor. Also, people at work tell me that my energy is infectious. So I find it an opportunity to set the tone at work in the morning when I walk in. When it was tough time, I'm going to walk in with this fur coat and this like glittery multi-colored top with this giant gold bib necklace and hot pink pants and it was great. I felt great. Everyone felt great. We had a little relaxation vibe going on there. Other times, when I am less pointed about what I'm trying to accomplish with the clothes or effect on people, it becomes just like, what do I want to feel like? Today, do I want to feel a little bolder, a little whimsical, whatever. And I've collected so many different things that just allows me to be like, "What do I feel like being today?" And what kind of mood I want to set for myself today. And like, what deserves some sunshine today.