{"id":432,"date":"2010-05-13T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2010-05-13T16:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ta100people.wpengine.com\/?p=432"},"modified":"2020-05-07T14:28:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T21:28:40","slug":"leona-chen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/leona-chen\/","title":{"rendered":"Leona Chen – Junior High Student, Mentor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fremont, CA<\/p>\n

\"chen.leona7\"Who are you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

What do you do? <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>I’m an 8th grader in junior high. I’m an older sister, a friend, and a mentor to the kids’ performing group from the Fremont Taiwan Center.<\/p>\n

In 5th grade, after every performance, my mom would tell me that I needed to smile more. I remember hating how she always picked on me. But I took her advice, and as the younger kids made their way into more and more shows, I became the one offstage, making silly faces to make them giggle. I made the mistakes, and they learned from them. Choreographing and teaching dance for them was one of the best experiences I had, because they trusted me. I wasn’t the scary, mean teacher. I was their “Leona \u59d0\u59d0”, and that made our classes together a lot of fun, because they weren’t too shy to offer feedback. The greatest thing about being the oldest is that I became a role model, and they’re my motivation to do my best, because I don’t want to let them down.<\/p>\n

Why are you proud to be of Taiwanese heritage?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was in 3rd grade, my mom enrolled me in the Fremont Taiwan School. Back then, being Taiwanese American was an epiphany for me, and I loved being part of a community so energetic and passionate. As the years progressed, I became an MC for performances that promoted Taiwanese culture, and grew closer to my great big FTS family and my Taiwanese roots.<\/p>\n

And I’m not going to lie, the food and night markets in Taiwan are pretty amazing.<\/p>\n

It’s lovely to come back from a vacation with a suitcase full of cool things.<\/p>\n

“Where’d you get that?” “Taiwan.” “Lucky!”<\/p>\n

What does the future of Taiwanese America look like to you?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>I see Taiwanese Americans being proud of their identity, educated on their culture, and secure in who they are. I see “Taiwanese American” becoming an internationally familiar concept. Maybe one day the old question will pop up again: “Are you Chinese? Filipino? Japanese? Korean?” Instead of being exasperated, I see Taiwanese Americans willing to share their ethnic background, and someday, we won’t have to explain.<\/p>\n

Any additional information you would like to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>7-Eleven in Taiwan is the best, end of discussion.<\/p>\n

\"chen.leona3\"<\/figure>\n
\"chen.leona5\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fremont, CA Who are you? What do you do? I’m an 8th grader in junior high. I’m an older sister, a friend, and a mentor to the kids’ performing group from the Fremont Taiwan Center. In 5th grade, after every performance, my mom would tell me that I needed to smile more. I remember hating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-100"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1986,"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/1986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taiwaneseamerican.org\/100people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}