“I am very healthy, but last year I actually made time to get a physical. I found out I have hyperthyroidism, and I got surgery this year. And just navigating through that … I am college educated, I have a good career, I have a flexible job so I can go to these appointments, I have friends in the medical industry, so I can ask them questions. And I think about how anyone else can do this if they don’t have x, y, z? If you’re working an hourly wage job, how do you take time off because you need to put food on the table? I’m ethnically Lao, and my communities are poor, and my dad is fortunate enough to speak English, but even then, when he goes to the doctor with my aunts, he comes back and asks me, ‘What did this mean?'” -Lily (Houston, Texas)

“On the mainland, you could be the only person of your race in a class. In Hawaii, it’s different. It’s so multicultural. There are so many different races: Spanish, Pacific Islander, Vietnamese. In my school, the Chinese teacher, Japanese teacher, would serve as translators for students who did not speak the language. Students are actually very helpful to each other, too. Last year, we had one student who was Vietnamese and didn’t speak any English, and another one of our students worked with her. By the end of the year, she was able to speak English.”

 -Shaun (Honolulu, Hawaii)

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