Asian American Studies 197B
Spring Quarter 2002

Reflection Journal 1
Suzan Luu, "Recognizing Our Specific Talent That We Can Contribute to Our Community"

I think that I have been conditioned to be an UCLA-centric student since high school. I did a lot of community service during high school, with the idea that it would benefit me: my future and my application for college. Although I liked volunteering and helping others, I always held the idea in my head that my activities would look good on paper. I became one of those who circulated this concept to the student body, being in a leadership position in the Interact Club in high school. I helped to recruit students to the club by not only stating the obvious, helping the community is good for others, but also added that volunteering would help you get into college!

The idea that internships and volunteering is to only benefit the student is continually disseminated at the institution. Everyone tells you that internships are the way to find jobs. We need to find an internship so we can get our foot in the door, so we can put it on our resumes, and use it as bragging rights. Furthermore, when we have time, we need to volunteer at a community organization and do some community service so we can also add that to our resumes or use it to fill out the extracurricular portion on our future applications. I am one of those people who have been conditioned to think this way. The purpose of volunteering changes from helping others to benefiting the individual.

I think that Professor Omatsu put into words what I had always known, that we have all learned that internships are to help the students and their futures. I believe that growing older and beginning my own hands-on involvement in the community is starting to help me realize that helping others should be the purpose in itself, and not to seek benefit myself. My greatest talent that I can contribute to the community and help others is my Cantonese speaking ability. It is visible to me that my language skills make things easier and help Chinese immigrants feel more at ease, and make them more confident to seek help at the worker center.

To transform the UCLA-centric ideal, students should try to recognize one specific trait, talent or skill that they can contribute to benefit the community. This trait is obviously beneficial to themselves to help them in the labor market or future, etc. However, how can they bring this trait into a community organization and donate it towards another’s advantage? Students need to ask themselves, why does this organization need what I have to give? It would be helpful to think about how they can contribute to the organization, while eliminating the thought about how their participation organization will help themselves.

The attitude of benefiting the individual will shine through to community groups/leaders. They have become smart to the idea that students are not here to commit to the organization and their purpose, but mainly to add their involvement to their resumes. Obviously there are many students who contribute their time to organizations because they believe in it and really want to help. I think their sincere position will be demonstrated in their willingness to take on extra work, rather than counting the minutes they are at the organization. Also, by taking the initiative to ask questions and actively seek to learn more about the organization, the community group/members will realize that the students are really committed. I think the most important thing one can do is taking an initiative.

With all the resources at our fingertips, I as an UCLA student will use our many libraries and media resources to help to contribute to the organization, which I will be interning at. I think that current events awareness is very important to the immigrant struggle. By reading the newspaper or finding material online, I will try to educate myself foremost on events, before I can become an advantage to the organization.