Khanhlam Lambuu: ‘I wasn’t going out as much.’
Khanhlam Lambuu is a Vietnamese-American first-year student studying neuroscience at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.
“I feel like the only thing I would describe myself as is just the local Asian female student who lives around here; that’s kind of it. I’m studious and am always going to classes and just walking around campus.
“I live in the suburbs, 30 minutes southeast of here. The university was just a pretty local top choice for me with the programs, because they’re really good and align with what I want to do in the future. It was definitely more anxiety-inducing to be walking around the areas where people were saying they saw ICE a lot, like at the Graduate, which is near the train station, and I use the train station quite frequently to go visit friends. Also, since I go to the Rec a lot, it’s more nerve-wracking, because they were pretty active in an area where I was always walking around.
I was just very nervous that at any point, my relatives could be stopped and possibly taken. Because Minnesota has such a big POC community, it was just more nerve-wracking to feel like that could be anyone that I know closely who could be taken. I stopped walking near the Graduate because I took the route that passed the Graduate to get to the Rec, so I had to make a new route. I also just wasn’t going out as much.
“I feel like it’s definitely changed the community a little bit. For the people who were protesting, it definitely brought a lot of people together to make a cause to try to get ICE out of the area, which I think, in a way, is good, but it’s really sad that it had to come because of that certain circumstance.
“I know for dancing specifically, a lot of our practices had to get canceled because people were so anxious to come to the metro area because of the ICE presence. Then, for a lot of Asian communities, whenever I talked with my friends, who were people of color and Asian, we always ended up going to the topic of how we’re just anxious that one person we know could get stopped by ICE.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview by Isabelle Curry
