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By Michael Chung My Interview with Linda Loi Impassioned, ambitious, and opinionated, these are all adjectives that can be used to paint a picture of Linda Loi, currently a senior majoring in Asian American Studies at UCLA. Her values of personal relations and conflict resolution were formed from her conservative upbringing from the quiet community of Irvine. As an Asian American Studies major, she notices much about race relations not only at the UCLA campus area but in Los Angeles in general. Her immediate plans include pursuing a career as a foreign ambassador of the United States to either her homeland of China or Japan. With the examples of Madeline Albright and Nicholas Burns, she also plans to go abroad and conduct matters of international relations with both of these Asian nations as an understanding representative of United States policy. Her aspirations were fueled by her international relations professor at UCLA who inspired her through his powerful actions, political actions and initiative as well as his ability to convey his experiences in an understanding and intelligent manner. She plans to be in a similar situation in the future, using her experiences with other ambassadors and leaders to help solve the problems of tomorrow through the knowledge of her own past experiences. Linda possesses an extremist personality that provides passion for her strong beliefs. This passion applies to personal matters regarding her value system but is also reflected through her views on race relations with regards to the relationships on the UCLA campus. She holds an extremely pessimistic and even fatalistic view of such a prospect as racial harmony. She believes that there is little hope for the campus community as well as the community because of the inherent nature of people in our society that places blame on the issue of race rather than the idea of prejudice based on socioeconomic class. The main point of her argument is exemplified by the segregation of different ethnic groups by the different groups on campus. From the African Student Union to the Korean Students Association, each group caters to a certain classification by ethnic group. With this attitude, she effectively believes in her premise that there is no possible solution to the problem of race relations in the world. In effect, she sees the UCLA as a microcosm of the world in the fact that there is such segmentation that corresponds to ethnic groups. To her, the only possible solution to improve relations is for all sides to compromises with one another, which to her is essentially impossible. Her ultimate goal is to make a tangible impact on the world as we know it and to leave an indelible mark of her selfless work. To Linda, her work as an ambassador of the United States to foreign nations would be a precursor to work as a university level professor where she plans to share the information she gained through he experiences with people of influence in international relations. Through her work as a professor, she plans to fulfill her dream to leave impressions of her own legacy upon her students. Terms like legacy and lasting impression are the ultimate goals for Linda's future. Rather than seeking fortune and fame through positions where both are definite possibilities, she would rather use her own talents for the purposes of learning and stockpiling so she can later relate her experiences to eager in a classroom situation for practical applications in the future. (Michael Chung is a Senior majoring in History.)