About Page
Hi! My name is Alex Kuo. I am from Newton, Massachusetts, and I have lived in Massachusetts for my entire life. Although my geographic perception of the world has been quite limited, I grew up in a very multicultural environment. I am biracial, my mom is from Massachusetts and my dad grew up in Taiwan. When I was around six years old, my Taiwanese grandparents moved from Taiwan to Massachusetts. Living with my grandparents and being aware of that multi-cultural dynamic got me interested in learning about other cultures because my grandparents only consumed Taiwanese media which actually gave them differing political opinions than I just because of the difference in information we both received.
Throughout my education, a lot of the people I surrounded myself with also grew up in multi-cultural environments, whether it is they who recently immigrated to the United States or their parents. It was easy for me to connect with these groups because of the shared multi-cultural identity we all had.
Having close friends who traveled a lot and felt very connected to countries I had not had the opportunity to go to, got me very interested in how life and culture operates in different parts of the world. With this in mind, I had the goal of being able to travel as much as I can as soon as the opportunity arose. In my time at Wesleyan, I have been fortunate enough to go abroad four times: China, Spain, England, and Indonesia. I have also focused much of my classwork on global issues, narrowing my interest over time to democracy and Western influence.
As I reflect on my growth, both with my education and my own identity, I have used this eportfolio as an opportunity to connect my travel experience with my personal classwork learning themes of democracy around the world and Western influence. This has allowed me to bridge the gap between school work and travel, letting me see first hand how global issues play out in cultural contexts around the world.
