Brooke Quach

(she/her)

Humanities 11

Growing up as a daughter of refugees in the Vietnamese Houston community, Brooke witnessed firsthand how a lack of cultural competency and awareness of racial disparities within the educational workforce affected the outcomes of individuals from marginalized backgrounds. Applying to college as a first-generation college student, Brooke’s family did not know how to emotionally or financially support her dreams of attending college. This led her to find support in her high school teachers instead. Brooke owes her academic success to the community who raised her–obtaining a full ride to the University of Texas at Austin and graduating with a B.A. in English.

At UT Austin, she met many professors who guided her towards understanding her ethnic identity and researching equity within education. Brooke was a McNair Scholar and an undergraduate researcher at UW Madison for the Summer Education Research Program. Under the mentorship of Dr. Stacey Lee, Dr. Anthony Brown, and Dr. Keffrelyn Brown, Brooke conducted research on the Model Minority Myth, social capital, and Vietnamese students in the Houston area. Alongside her research, Brooke was also passionate about storytelling, writing short stories and opinion pieces for The Liberator, the official publication for UT’s College of Liberal Arts.

After her undergraduate career, Brooke has gone on to complete her Masters in Education from the Stanford Teacher Education Program, where she student-taught at Menlo-Atherton High School under her beloved mentor, Lara Gill. Because of her experiences at M-A and working with a diverse variety of students, Brooke deeply believes in the power of heterogeneous classroom settings, storytelling, community, and love.

Teachers throughout Brooke’s life encouraged her to tackle problems she didn’t understand with literature, giving her the language to identify her own strengths and recognize the assets she had grown up with. As a teacher, she hopes to be able to guide her students, who are bound to come from a variety of culturally diverse experiences and backgrounds, how to do the same. Outside of teaching, Brooke enjoys meeting new people, being in community, eating, cooking, practicing Muay Thai, and hanging out with her dog, Mr. Benny.

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