Explore How one Obama Leader is creating space for AANHPI women

After years of working in advocacy and organizing spaces, I kept noticing how isolating it can feel to be one of the only Asian American women in the room. I wanted to build a space where we could come together—not to explain ourselves, but to be seen and supported. Badass Asian Women started as a text thread between friends and grew into a vibrant community of women across Metro Atlanta who share meals, host intergenerational dialogues, and build solidarity. It’s about joy, connection, and making room for each other in places where we’ve been invisible. But more importantly, it’s about claiming our power, especially when so many of us feel powerless.

For me, visibility is about reaching back and pulling others up with you. As a Vietnamese American woman, I didn’t grow up seeing people like me in leadership. That absence sent a quiet message: this isn’t for you. That’s why I founded Badass Asian Women—not just for myself, but for those who came before and those yet to come—to remind us that we are worthy, we are not alone, and we belong. My leadership is a way of honoring the women in my family—my mother and my grandmother—whose stories were disrupted by war, migration, and silence. This month, I’m reflecting on how far we’ve come, especially here in Georgia, where Asian American women are shaping culture, policy, and power.

The Leaders USA program cracked my worldview wide open. It has provided me with invaluable mentorship, resources, and a network of values-based changemakers committed to advancing the common good. It gave me the confidence to take on new ventures—like launching a small business to support refugees in Georgia—while still staying rooted in community work. The upcoming Obama Presidential Center represents that same spirit: connection, possibility, and physical space for people to learn, share, and organize.