Cynthia Leung grew up in an enclave of the Gravesend neighborhood that has one of the largest Chinese American populations in New York City. The daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong didn’t encounter many White people until she got to middle school, where they were suddenly a majority of her peers.
“It was the first time in my life where I felt like I didn’t really belong somewhere,” she says.
That sense of otherness led her to social justice spaces, first through the arts in middle school, and then through a climate science lens at the STEM-focused specialized high school she attended.
There, the “Park Slope kids who had been socialized to rule the world” sucked all the oxygen out of the air, she says. “Even the faculty favored them.”
That changed when she got to Brooklyn College, where she landed because many of her mentors told the top student that if she wanted a career in social justice, she should look to a CUNY college, rather than an elite private university.
“Initially, I thought I might transfer but I ended up finding my voice here,” says the American Studies major who is finishing her classes this semester. “I had professors who believed in me before anyone else did. I learned to believe in myself.”
An Active Academic Journey
With encouragement and mentorship from faculty members, Leung worked on research, found internships, and participated in programs that allowed her to nurture a whirlwind of interests. She’s a member of the advisory board of the newly-formed Brooklyn College AANAPISI Project. She’s also currently interning at the Vera Institute, a leading criminal justice reform organization located in Sunset Park.
With Aleah Ranjitsingh, an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies, Leung embarked on research as part of The Tow Mentoring Initiative about Eurocentric beauty standards, which helped her gain a previous internship at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, where she worked on a project on “beauty justice.”
In Professor Joseph Entin’s American studies class, she interviewed a sex worker for The Brooklyn College Listening Project, an assignment that facilitated another internship at Red Canary Song, a coalition that works for the rights of Asian massage parlor workers. The organization is planning to turn her interview into an audio essay for their social media channels.
“Their stories are so important,” says Leung.
The experience made such an impression on her that it influenced Leung to consider law school for her future, so she can be a public defender for sex workers.
But that’s only the part of the plan.
Breaking a Leg
Leung, an experienced actress and model with representation who has been honing her craft since middle school, is ready for her big break. Her credits include a demo for Google, a stint as a model in an Amazon Prime show called “Modern Love,” and an appearance in Vogue magazine for a fashion show she organized.
Last academic year, she earned a Rosen Fellowship, which in part helped her attend a two-week program at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts this summer. There, she put on a show at the storied Orange Tree Theater.
As a second part of the fellowship, she is penning a one-woman show that she describes as a series of short monologues that will span her personal journey through issues of justice and safety.
“It will be an East Asian perspective on everything from intergenerational trauma to ideas around corporal punishment, which is a big issue in immigrant families,” she explains.
More Dreams and Degrees
After graduating in December, Leung is hoping to score a prominent fellowship (which she doesn’t want to name for fear of jinxing it) to attend a master’s program in criminology in the United Kingdom. Then, she’s thinking of a master’s in social work.
“I just want to gain different insights and maybe be an expert in something before I go to law school,” she says. “I know my resume is a little all over the place. Ultimately, the thread for all of the work I plan to do will be justice. Restorative justice, climate justice, ending cycles of violence.”
In the meanwhile, she’s fostering all of her dreams.
“I’m going to be famous in the next year,” she says, and then again, trying to speak it into fruition. “I’m going to be famous. I’m going to be in a big movie or TV show. It’s going to be my big break. I’m putting it out into the universe.”
Pausing to consider everything she plans to juggle, she doubles down.
“I can do everything that I want to do,” she says. “I believe in myself.”
