The Stars are Tangible (Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month)

Image: Caroline Juang (catblip)

By Amy Huynh, 2019 Brooke Owens Fellow

Caroline Juang. Golda Nguyen. Shreya Udupa. Julia Di. Chloe Long. Those were names I looked up almost religiously once I learned about the Brooke Owens Fellowship. There were so many other amazing fellows with incredibly inspiring biographies on the website, but those were the names and faces that stuck with me the most. Their stories were the ones I kept reading over and over again. When I was having a rough time in school, these stories gave me the inspiration and motivation to keep going. On a surface level, I knew why that was the case: these womxn looked like me. They are all Asian American womxn in aerospace just like me. However, on a deeper level, I couldn’t quite pinpoint why that mattered to me so much. Even now, it can still be hard to find the perfect words to convey my feelings on why Asian American representation is so important to me.

I first learned about the Brooke Owens Fellowship towards the end of my senior year of high school in 2017—the fellowship’s inaugural year. It didn’t take long into my college career to realize that engineering was a male-dominated field when I was always one of the few girls in all of my classes. BOF seemed like a wonderful program to address this; it was somewhere that could finally make me feel like I belonged in aerospace. Looking at the BOF application, it was also clear that the fellowship cared not only about their applicants’ achievements, but also about their personalities, backgrounds, and stories. This program was something special; they wanted to see me for who I really am, not just who I am on paper. I knew that I had to become a Brooke Owens Fellow. 

I read through all of the individual biographies of the inaugural class of Brookies and I was floored. Every single Brookie was incredible and their enthusiasm for aerospace was immediately evident. Once I got to Caroline, Golda, and Shreya’s profiles, I was awestruck by their profiles and by the realization that they were the only Asian Americans of the entire class. I tried to formulate a reason for this. Are Asian American womxn just not interested in aerospace? Is space not accessible enough? Is aerospace even a known option to these students? 

The following year, the second class of Brookies was announced and I noticed again that Julia and Chloe were the only Asian American fellows. The upcoming application season would be when I would try applying, but would I even have a chance if there were only two fellows who looked like me in each class so far? How could I make it through those stakes? How could I possibly compare to the competitive applicants out there, especially if the chances seemed even slimmer for Asian American womxn?

Sally Ride said “You can’t be what you can’t see” and Sirisha Bandla’s and Anita Sengupta’s, both BOF mentors, thoughts on this is that “It’s very easy for someone to tell you and it’s important that message is heard. But it’s not as powerful as having someone there, having someone tangible to show you that that message is true.” I couldn't agree more with this. Seeing those Brookies on the website showed me that there really is a place for someone who looks like me. Knowing that they have successfully trekked through their aerospace journeys meant that I could too. I would have more guidance and role models to look up to on the way than they did. And I would have a more developed map of the paths I could take. 

While my sense of self-doubt and Impostor Syndrome grew, surprisingly, so did my self-confidence and Brookieness. Yes, sometimes it feels lonely or like I don’t belong in aerospace being one of the few Asian American womxn here. But at the same time, it feels incredibly empowering to realize that I am part of this small group making it in aerospace together. I am part of the change I want to see in aerospace. 

I decided to be fearless for a bit and take a chance on myself and apply to BOF, despite not knowing what my chances were because the risk was worth it. Instead of worrying if I would make it, I focused on the “what if I did?” What if I could make someone else feel empowered to continue pursuing aerospace because I was present and made space for other womxn like me? 

When the class of 2019 Brookies was revealed, I found myself reading through everyone’s biographies again—completely in awe that these womxn were part of my extraordinary class and that I belonged with them. I immediately noticed that there were more Asian American womxn in my class than ever before, and that made me feel so proud and even more welcomed. 

Before the summit, I got to know everyone more in our group chat and we already were bonding over our shared love of aerospace. The summer quickly flew by and it was going to finally happen: the summit in Washington D.C. Even though it has been nearly a year from my summit experience, I still reflect on those sacred memories often. Everyone around me was so authentically supportive and uplifting of each other. Never had I ever been surrounded by so many incredible womxn in aerospace before. 

We all came from such unique backgrounds, but we all had a part of Brooke in us. Every single person was included no matter what they looked like or where they came from. I never felt isolated as an Asian American during the summit because we celebrated our differences and helped to empower everyone’s voices. It was life-changing for me because I never felt such a deep amount of support and respect before, especially from people I had only just met. 

Talking with the other womxn of color at the summit was particularly special because we understood what it’s like to be the only person of color in the room, whether at school or even during our internships that summer. We made it to this summit with fewer role models and guidance, but now we found the support we had been missing this whole time. These friendships and support systems have only strengthened a year from now and we will continue shaping our future journeys together.

To be an Asian American Brookie means to represent a minority group within an already marginalized group of womxn in the aerospace industry. I hold this position with a sense of responsibility to future Asian American Brookies and womxn who deserve to feel noticed and represented. I hope to continue paving the path for you as Caroline, Golda, Shreya, Julia, and Chloe have all done for me by sharing my story and being a mentor to others. We are the present and future of aerospace, creating the Asian American womxn’s history that we wish we could have read about or seen for ourselves.