As part of APU’s speaker series, Representative Tram Nguyen spoke on the importance of diversity and participation in politics in the OWHL.
In collaboration with LeadHer and the Southeast Asian Society, the Andover Political Union (APU) invited Massachusetts Representative Tram Nguyen of the 18th Essex District as the guest of this week’s speaker series. With the upcoming 2024 United States presidential election, APU aims to invite representatives from across the political spectrum, with Representative Tram Nguyen speaking for the Democratic Party.
Derek Curtis, the student support and programming librarian for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, explained APU’s decision to invite Representative Tram Nguyen. He recalled ways that Representative Tram Nguyen has interacted with the Andover community in the past and listed some of the opportunities students would gain through the talk.
“In general, [the] APU has recognized that politics are more contentious, and we need to explicitly work on bringing people together to talk about difficult issues in a way that reinforces the norm of respecting each other and engaging in good faith conversation. If we repress a certain level of disagreement, that’s not healthy for our democracy. It’s not healthy for our community. If you’re afraid to say what you think about a topic, that’s probably not a good place for a community to be if people feel like they can’t speak their minds. That seems to be an increasing feature of politics in general, and I feel like they wanted to counteract that by creating events in which people could go about engaging in this type of dialogue,” said Curtis.
He continued, “The main goal is that they hear someone talking about why they’re in politics, why they think politics is important, and some of their political views. It’s an opportunity to learn more about what it means to be in politics, but also to talk to someone who you may agree or disagree with, and to give them some of your questions, your tough and challenging questions, and hear someone in real time respond to them. That itself generates the sort of political discourse that we’re hoping, [and] that the school’s hoping students engage in.”
Nurul Iza Khairunnisa ’25, a board member of APU, discussed the effects that Representative Tram Nguyen’s talk would hopefully have on the Andover community. She emphasized the importance of engaging with local politicians and having a greater political awareness.
“The issue with a lot of young voters nowadays is that they don’t pay attention to what’s happening, and because Tram’s a state representative for Andover specifically [so] she’s definitely involved with the decisions in our surroundings, It’s important to bring in people like her to show that politics is not just something that you see on TV. It’s not just something you see in the news. It’s something that is affecting you personally, and the decisions that they make for the town are affecting you. That’s why you should pay attention,” said Khairunnisa.
Arriving in the U.S. as a political refugee, Representative Tram Nguyen explained that diversity is critical in politics. Nguyen also emphasized the importance of encouraging youth to participate in political discourse and elaborated on the value of listening to a range of opinions.
“We need to be better at meeting people where they’re at and making sure that they understand that the government can work for them. When we talk about representation or diversity, it’s [because it] benefits everyone when we have more people at the table. Right now, in the legislature, the average age is probably 50 or 60. We don’t have many millennials, and that’s a problem. How do we get young people to be engaged when they don’t connect with elected officials that they see? We need to do a better job of just bringing in these communities that do not feel as though they are represented in their respective governments,” said Nguyen.
“When we work on bills, it requires a lot of communication and a lot of collaboration. It requires a lot of hard conversations,” Nguyen continued. “The one thing that we learned is that when you advocate for voices that are often not heard, that is when you learn the most. Something to keep in mind, too, is that I love to have people in the room who disagree with me because they bring a new perspective that I may not have. You actually learn more from people you disagree with than the people you agree with, which is why I continue to say that the Massachusetts legislature functions very differently from Congress. All the fighting that you see at the federal level is not happening here. Frankly, it might be because we have a supermajority, but we work with Republicans very closely.”
Katherine Browder ’26, a board member of APU, highlighted APU’s commitment to respectful discourse and how she hoped inviting speakers of different opinions, like Representative Tram Nguyen, would inspire this behavior.
“We want to encourage people from all different sides of the political spectrum to engage in conversation and debate their opinions in a respectful way. We’re having speakers come in to talk and getting them from both sides of the political spectrum… This week, we have a speaker, the Democratic representative, come in to speak. We’re having people share different opinions and discuss in a respectful speech,” said Browder.
