As Cội Nguồn, or Roots, we are looking to write the unwritten. This is an oral and family history project started by the Vietnamese Student Union (VSU) at UCLA that we hope will be able to continue on for years to come. Through this project, we aim to preserve the memories of all Southeast Asian-American students at UCLA through media, photos, videos, interviews with parents, and stories written by the students themselves about their family history. In this way, the story of every Vietnamese and Southeast Asian-American that passes through UCLA can be memorialized through institutions on campus. As the Southeast Asian community at UCLA grows ever more vibrant, this project aims not only to remember and record our living stories of our identities, our parents' histories, and our pasts, but also to open a dialogue about our family history with our parents and grandparents that we may never have opened before.

We hope for you all to take this opportunity to open a dialogue with family within your household or through virtual means to learn about and appreciate your Southeast Asian heritage. This project is inclusive and open to anyone, so please join us in this community effort!

A leaf will always fall back down to its roots. We are the leaves, and no matter where we are, we can reconnect with our roots through our heritage and our stories.

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