Born in Nogent sur Marne, France, I immigrated to the United States at the age of eight and lived in Lynn, Massachusetts for a year before spending the bulk of my childhood in Rhodes Island. From the language barrier to the cultural shock, I had to adjust and adapt to living with my new family. I quickly enrolled in English as a Secondary Language classes to study English in a completely foreign environment. Simultaneously, I learned how to speak Chinese and Cambodian at home in order to communicate with my relatives, all of whom were refugees who spoke little English and had escaped from their native country after experiencing the Cambodian genocide. My grandparents and godfather would often narrate their gruesome experiences under the brutal Communist Khmer Rouge regime. Facing starvation, exhaustion, and many family deaths, their stories represent what I call real survivorship. These stories inspired and motivated me.

To become fluent in English, I practiced enunciating difficult words by imitating what I heard on television and recording videocassettes of myself reading. I read U.S. history and naturalization questions and answers aloud for my illiterate grandparents who were applying for citizenship. “Where does the president live?” I quizzed my grandmother. She responded, “My house.” We both laughed a bit as I explained to her in Cambodian what I had just asked. By the age of twelve, I pushed myself despite being teased by fellow students for my “weird accent” so that I could master English, Chinese and Cambodian to assist in selling the 18K-24K gold bracelets, necklaces and earrings at our family jewelry shop. I even picked up some Laotian along the way to sell jewelry to many of our Laotian clients. Occasionally, I had to translate an American customer’s request from English to Chinese and/or Cambodian for my godparents so they could grasp what was being asked.

By the age of twelve, I knew how to calculate the market value of gold given its weight and karat content, and how to price an article of jewelry just right so that it appealed to buyers yet still allowed leeway for their unexpected bargaining. Not only did I learn to become a daughter, older sibling and mother at home, I also embraced my roles as student at school and salesperson at our jewelry store. I entered my teenage years as a hard worker with immense empathy and diligence, for I continuously strived to be a steady rock for my entire family by learning how to adapt and tackle any new challenges.

When I entered college, I wanted to expand what I had learned through these personal experiences to a broader struggle against injustice. I also wanted to utilize my education in a way that would allow me to give back to my family. As a student at UC San Diego, the philosophy that I strove to embody daily is a deeper understanding of diversity through Thurgood Marshall’s idea of “scholar and citizen.” As a scholar, I devoted myself to studying Cambodian history. I was privileged to be invited by my professor to enroll in graduate courses, through which I conducted research on the varying effects of the Cambodian genocide on survivors’ trust levels in their families and the government. In June 2011, I visited Cambodia with my godfather and interviewed survivors as well as young Cambodians who did not live under the oppressive regime, noticing a remarkable generation gap in terms of trust scores across different age groups. I wrote two honors theses my senior year, dedicated to my family, one quantitatively analyzing the results of my research and the other focusing on the psychological effects of distrust. As a citizen, I actively advocated in student government to host a series of annual diversity campaigns. Because I am able to speak several languages, I also volunteered to be a weekly tutor for students learning how to speak French, Chinese or Cambodian.

My approach to life as a survivor has helped to shape my values as scholar and citizen. I am the first person in my family to apply for graduate school studies. I believe that my unique personal story, combined with my eagerness to learn and share my experiences with others, will enrich the diversity of the law school classrooms I am a part of.