In Their Words: Ilene Le

Name: Ilene Le

Department: Sociology with a concentration in Global Information and Social Enterprise (GISES).

What Award/ Scholarship did you receive? I received the 2018 Weiss Family Scholarship.

What year do you expect to graduate? Spring 2019.

Where do you call home? My home is in San Jose, California. I like to call myself truly blessed to have been raised in the largest Vietnamese population in America. Being able to grow within the values and traditions of my family’s culture and develop intimate relationships with my Vietnamese peers has made me extremely proud to be a Vietnamese-American and a part of my community.

With all of the choices for college, what made UC Santa Cruz stand out? I chose UC Santa Cruz mainly for its friendly community. Students and staff here seemed playful but also grounded in their academics and respect for humanity.

What is your field of focus? Currently, I am studying Sociology with a concentration in Global Information and Social Enterprise (GISES). I am interested in Southeast Asian labor studies, war diaspora and memory narratives, the API educational gap, and queer API representation in the media.

What do you hope to do once you graduate from UC Santa Cruz? Once I graduate from UC Santa Cruz, I hope to travel as I have never been outside of California. I hope to discover more parts of the world and interact with people from those different spaces to truly understand the multitudes of experiences and lives that are lived. I plan to find work that will help me do this and uplift others in the process.  

What is your one piece of advice for incoming students about life at UC Santa Cruz? If I could give one piece of advice to incoming students about life at UC Santa Cruz, I would tell them that this campus is centered around community involvement. There are endless places on campus and within the Santa Cruz community where like-minded students and are able to get together and make some really magical things happen.

How will this scholarship impact your academic life /research? I rely on financial aid and student loans to help fund my education. Receiving this scholarship will greatly impact my academic life by reducing my financial burdens. My family’s lack of economic capital has always led me to question whether higher education was possible for me but after receiving this scholarship I have gained confidence that money is an obstacle I am able to overcome.