Name: Irene Huangyi Lin

Age: 24

Where she's from: Upland, California

Roots: China and Taiwan

When and where were you born?

I was born February 20, 1976 in Brooklyn, New York.

What is your favorite place?

Any bookstore and my college campus.

Who or what has had a particularly strong influence on your life?

TV and newspapers have had a major impact on my life by shaping my political views and teaching me to care about current events and people in distant lands. Some of my bosses have been tremendously influential. In Zimbabwe, I worked for Professor Yash Tandon who had started a non-profit to give Africa a greater voice in shaping trade policy. Prof. Tandon has dedicated just about his entire life working for the liberation of Africa, first from colonial rule and now from the injustice of global trade policies. He showed me how to challenge the conventional wisdom of Western "experts" and his example has shown me how, even if the odds are heavily stacked against you, you can't give up the fight.

What's been the most important event in your life?

November 1999 in Seattle at the World Trade Organization meeting. To put this event into context, I had been volunteering in Zimbabwe, Africa for almost a year and was feeling more and more depressed about the situation. AIDS was and is still killing massive amounts of people, the government seemed hopelessly corrupt, food shortages were prevalent and the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization's policies were only deepening the crisis. I arrived in Seattle very pessimistic about the state of the world, but seeing the thousands of people on the streets was so revelatory, especially seeing young people caring about things like Third World debt and sweatshop labor. It was incredible to see the nascent stage of this emerging global citizens' movement.

What public figures do you admire?

Julius Nyerere, the first president of independent Tanzania, for his humility, intelligence and passion for uniting not only Tanzanians, but all of Africa. Arthur Ashe for having a humanity that outweighed his athletic talent and Margaret Sanger, whose birth control crusade has affected just about every person on the planet, and to whom all American women owe a special debt. Our lives would look very different if not for her.

What are you afraid of?

I am terrified of failure. How exactly I define "failure" I can't say. But seeing that only two generations ago, my grandmother was a concubine with bound feet and my other grandma did not have a chance to attend college makes me grateful for all the opportunities I have had and I don't want to blow it. On a societal level, I have nightmares about environmental devastation and what will happen when the world runs out of fresh water or oil or trees.

What are you not so good at?

I stink at languages and I desperately wish I didn't. I dream about speaking gorgeous Mandarin and French.

What kind of student were you?

I was your typical anal-retentive, hyper-competitive Asian nerd up until college. It was in college that I finally figured out that what was really important was the fact that ideas have consequences in this world that can lead to genocide and massacres and somehow that should outweigh the importance of my GPA.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Besides reading, I watch way too much TV, especially Dawson's Creek (I'm nuts about Pacey), the Real World and PBS documentaries. I'm a passionate fan of figure skating and waste a large chunk of money attending events.

What is your advice to young people?

Read, read, read everything you can get your hands on, especially a daily newspaper. Never let anyone dictate what you should think and learn to have respect for everyone's views, especially those whom you disagree with the most.