April 9 is recognized as National Chinese Almond Cookie Day. When I looked through the holidays of April to plan this month’s content, this date stood out and inspired me after reading the 2024 Southeast Past and Present Futures (SEAPF) magazine, where many UW Bothell students reflected on recipes that hold personal meaning.
Despite the name, Chinese almond cookies are more American than people may know. Traditionally, earlier versions had decorative stamps like mooncakes, which can be traced back to Southern China, where they were softer and made with mung bean flour instead of almond flour. Additionally, to suit American tastes, lard was replaced by butter and sweetness was increased in many baked goods such as cream buns, sponge cakes, and Hong Kong egg tarts (another one of my favorites). Today, Chinese almond cookies are just a simple, round, crunchy golden dessert topped with an almond.
As food traditions often change, the cookie also evolved when many Southern Chinese families migrated to Chinatowns across California, New York and the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to build bakery businesses. These bakeries served as both economic footholds for immigrant families and gathering spaces for people who spoke the same language.
In many ways, the almond cookie reflects the adaptive nature of the Chinese American experience. That idea feels deeply familiar to me as someone who was raised in Southern California in Monterey Park, a city shaped by generations of Asian immigrants.
There, Asian culture can be heard and seen in everyday life through the languages spoken in grocery stores and the English translations on billboards and street signs.
When I moved from a diverse city to suburban Washington in my teenage years, I immediately felt a difference in the way I spoke, dressed, and carried myself. That experience made me realize how deeply I valued being surrounded by people who understood those experiences, which is why I chose to move out and seek a more connected community at university.
Like many students who move away from home, I had to learn how to rebuild a sense of belonging. During my first year living on campus at UW Bothell, I met many students whom I can now call my good friends, who shared the experience of living between cultures, responsibilities and expectations. In my second and now third year, I learned through planning Storytime with Student Media that community can be created through vulnerability and dialogue, even when it brings together diverse ways of seeing the world.
Within my family, I have seen the quiet economic pressures of putting food on the table through stretched budgets, worn shoes, and hands roughened by long hours of work. These experiences have shaped how I understand success. It’s often only seen as a visible achievement, but it is also tied to an immense amount of sacrifice and adaptation to ensure the next generation has better choices than the last.
This April, I am incredibly honored and proud to be recognized as a recipient of the Husky 100. The award made me reflect on what achievement really means and what it is rooted in. I have come to view my success as part of a larger journey of strength, shaped by the risks my ancestors took to create opportunity for me. It is also tied to the broader communities, such as Monterey Park, that have created space for me to belong and grow.
That is exactly why local cultural neighborhoods such as Seattle’s Chinatown-International District matter and deserve to be cared for. They have provided immigrant families with places to find work and safety in an unfamiliar country, while also introducing broader communities to new foods and traditions. Today, many businesses face rising costs, redevelopment pressures, and gentrification. If more bakeries and restaurants are forced to close, we will lose the recipes, stories and spaces that hold communities together.
My experiences navigating identity, family responsibility and community at UW Bothell have shaped how I understand success as something rooted in resilience and acts of service. As a first-generation Chinese American and 2026 Husky 100 recipient, I am proud to carry these experiences with me to continue uplifting stories and the histories behind them, like the Chinese Almond Cookie.
For students interested in advocacy, building lasting connections, or learning more about the SEAPF program, visit their page on the OCL website or contact the Co-Directors, Nhi P. Tran (nhiptran@uw.edu) and Dr. Raissa DeSmet (rdesmet@uw.edu).
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