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be bold
SOCIAL CHANGE AGENT An Thien Nguyen, ’20 political science focuses her research, outreach and empathy on the Southeast Asian community
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n Thien Nguyen ’20 has garnered numerous awards and scholarships while at UCI, from being named Outstanding Undergraduate Student by the Alumni Association to making the cut as a finalist for the highly competitive 2020-21 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. As one of the student commencement speakers for the School of Social Sciences class of 2020, Nguyen will have the opportunity to address her peers at their long-awaited ceremony, albeit remotely. With every new accolade, Nguyen is reminded that the life she inhabits is one her parents could never even have dreamed for her. “Because I’m so deeply rooted in my family and where I come from, a lot of my drive comes from wanting to take hold of every opportunity my parents couldn’t have,” says Nguyen, a political science major in the School of Social Sciences. Nguyen’s parents met in Los Angeles, but share harrowing stories of escaping from Vietnam amid war and political turmoil. Her mother was incarcerated for two years after one of her many attempts to flee her homeland, and Nguyen’s parents both spent time in refugee camps before emigrating to the U.S. “The unspeakable violence caused by war, and the trauma my parents experienced, is very difficult to talk about,” explains Nguyen, who urged her parents to share their personal stories with her once she was in college. “I wanted to know more about my parents because I wanted to know more about myself. Oral histories are so valuable to me because there are so many lessons embedded in those narratives.”
That desire to understand what her parents faced went beyond family bonding and became the driving force behind Nguyen’s undergraduate research and advocacy. Engaging with politics Nguyen didn’t plan to study political science when she came to UCI. She enrolled as a biological science major which, she laughs, “is such a clichè.” After a difficult initial quarter, she took a first-year writing course taught by a political scientist, and it changed the trajectory of her academic career. She switched to a full load of political science courses, and solidified her love for the subject. Nguyen seized every opportunity to engage with politics at UCI beyond the classroom, including through the Model UN, Global Connect, the Summer Undergraduate Research Program, and UC Student Organizing Summit. In her campus job at the Scholarship Opportunities Program, she advised other students on scholarship programs that aligned with their interests and goals.
