A Q&A With Tiffany Nguyen

Isabella Robles: Can you say your name and spell it please ?
Tiffany Nguyen: T-I-F-F-A-N-Y N-G-U-Y-E-N

IR: What’s it like having Vietnam parents that immigrated to the U.S
?
TN: ​It's really hard to communicate because I grew up in a different
environment than they did so we have conflicting viewpoints and i
keep trying to understand their way of communicating.

IR:Do you have any siblings that have given you a hard time ?
TN: Yes, I have a younger sibling thats in the 3rd grade and all he
does is play fortnite everyday and i’m really worried of his upcoming
STAAR test scores.

IR:When did you know that one of your interest was art ?
TN: Ever since I was young I was surrounded by artistic family and I
learned that my cousins had learned how draw anime characters so
I followed in their footsteps and began doodling anime characters so
from then on I got a new hobby and decided to join high school art.

IR:Before making a phone call do you rehearse what your going to

say. Why ?
TN: Sometimes, you rehearse when it’s an important topic or a
person but if it’s just casual than I wont.
IR:If you could change anything about the way you were raised what
would you change ?
TN: change some of the conflicting ideals of communication so my
family could understand me better and found a way to spend more
time as a family.

IR:Is there anything you’ve dreamed of doing since you were small ?
Why haven’t you done it ?
TN: Now that I think about it I would like to visit and travel more,
my family works a lot and I don’t have much freedom to do what I
want.

IR:Being from a Vietnamese background do you experience any

cultural differences ?
TN: cultural shocks for example people are fairly poor in Vietnam
because it’s a newly industrialized country so they don’t have luxury
of getting food so they eat dogs but now i understand because they do
it to survive. Things over their seem to be misunderstood.

IR:What do you value most in friendship ?

TN: being able to confide in my friends in bad times and having a
good relationship, no fake friends, I really enjoy deep conversations
so I need people to share my experiences with.

IR:What is your most terrible memory ?

TN: when I was younger I hated getting spanked so I always hated
that because I would constantly do bad things.

IR:Have you had any family issues or drama with friends?

TN:I have had family issues my family just keeps me out of things so i
can’t intervin and get left out so i don’t feel like i’m part of the family
sometimes.

IR:How close and warm is your family? Do you feel that you had a
happy childhood ?
TN: we have a lot of communication issues so were not that close like
other families but I would say their really caring they just show it in
their own way.

IR:When did you last cry in front of another person? What was the
reason ?
TN: I actually had a retreat a couple weeks ago, so we were given a
letter from our parents and, the funny thing is the entire letter was
written in Japanese so I couldn’t understand it at all but I still cried
like a baby because I have never experienced my parents doing
something like that for me before so I was really touched.

IR:What’s the strangest dream you’ve ever had ?

TN: Well I can't remember most of my dreams but their have been
some dreams that have spoked me but maybe it's just deja vu or
something because sometimes I’ll dream something and then it’ll
happen the next day.

IR:Do you celebrate any holidays that aren’t usually celebrated by

other cultures ?
TN: Yeah, we do New Years differently, so every February or so we
would celebrate lunar new year and it's usually gather around and
we have a family celebration while giving each other red envelopes
and wishing each other good luck, prosperity and happiness for the
next year.

IR:What are your nicknames ? How did you get them ?

TN: Well most nicknames that I go by are mostly given to me by my
family, so one nickname is nini, my grandma since she’s Vietnamese
she can't pronounce Tiffany so she just called me that. Oh and I also
go by watermelon because my brothers nickname is lemon so mines
watermelon, I guess.

IR:How do you handle disagreements ?

TN: For disagreements I’m such a coward because I don’t like
confronting people so what I usually do is just agree to the otter
person and just ignore my argument because I don’t want things to
go wrong so I just agree with them.

IR:Have you ever visited Vietnam ? If yes what are some interesting
things to see in your country ?
TN: Okay, I actually talked about this with my family a couple days
ago, But I have visited in the summer after first grade but I haven’t
visited ever since, so Ive been telling my parents we should go visit
again but they just told me to wait until I graduate.

IR: What do you remember about visiting Vietnam ?

TN: Well theirs not a lot of things, I remember seeing someone burn
their trash in the street, so theirs a lot of motorbikes that travel
around and stuff, so I got on one ounce to get ice cream and my mom
yelled at me.

IR:In your opinion what is the worst thing that could happen ?
TN: The worst thing that could happen is everybody forgetting about
me or I’m left alone forever because my greatest fear is being alone
so if this happened to be I think I would literally have a mental
breakdown.

IR:Anything else you’d like to add ?

TN: No.