As an Asian-American artist, I honor my cultural heritage and share it with my voice. By singing and creating operas with Asian themes or elements, I am reclaiming narratives that have been historically overlooked or misrepresented. Through my performances, I wish to celebrate and educate Asian culture, traditions, and stories. When what I sing is not specific to my culture, I still show the audience that I am just as much a part of the tapestry of American identity as everyone else. Stories of love, loss, grief, and laughter are human stories at their core. It is my hope that younger aspiring Asian singers in that same audience can be inspired by my presence on stage and pursue their dreams.

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Belonging to a historically excluded group, I constantly work to push this industry toward a more inclusive direction, so that the stories we tell and who gets to tell them are as diverse as the audiences today. In Fall 2023, I performed Jack Perla and Jessica Murphy Moo's An American Dream where, after one show, a woman from Singapore said that was the first time she'd seen someone who looked like her on an American stage.​​

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During my years at Peabody Conservatory, I was able to visit my grandmother (Nai Nai – Father’s side) in Maryland more frequently, and every time I did she would often share stories of when she attended opera performances or listened to them on the radio (both Chinese and Western style opera). When I sang for her in her retirement home, I never felt it was a necessity nor a burden, only something that I wanted to share with her because I knew she loved it so much. She was also the first person to see me perform a named role and drove with my grandfather to Peabody for a concert version of Le nozze di Figaro. Despite her not knowing a single word of Italian and there being no subtitles, she was able to cry, laugh, and enjoy the opera. It was then when I began to understand that singing, and opera in particular stands as a unique form of storytelling, enabling me to transcend language barriers and communicate universal themes and emotions, fostering understanding and empathy across cultures.

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Back home in Hawai’i, I lived with my grandmother on my mother’s side (PoPo) where, once she learned I could sing, requested her favorite tunes that I would gladly perform for her every day – sometimes multiple times a day! I would always sing to her as she came up the stairlift to go on her daily outing (we keep active in my family!) and as she came home and went back down, and then closed the evening with a song as she went to bed. I don’t think there was a single performance of mine she missed while I was a Young Artist at Hawai’i Opera Theatre. Despite her small and frail appearance at an age over 90, there was nothing remotely frail about her.

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Both of my grandmothers received late-stage cancer diagnoses that put them in hospice care. PoPo received hers during my last year at Hawai’i Opera Theatre, where I was to leave for a contract on the East Coast after my final performance of La Bohème. It was the hardest decision for me to make and one that filled me with immense guilt at times as I knew this would likely be the last time I’d be with her. I think PoPo knew when she randomly said to me one day how proud she was that I was able to do what I love for a living. The last thing I ever did for both of them was sing their favorite songs over the phone (Amazing Grace and Some Enchanted Evening respectively) as they were in their sickbeds.

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All of this is to say I owe everything to these two women and to my heritage. I sing and I write ​to share this gift and to tell my people's stories.