White House selects NMI student as E3! Ambassador

Northern Marianas College senior Riya Nathrani is one of the 23 young leaders nationwide to be chosen to serve for a year as an E3! Ambassador for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The White House announced Nathrani’s selection last week.

Nathrani is currently an intern at the Northern Mariana Islands congressional office on Saipan and also worked at the office at the U.S. Capitol this summer under the auspices of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies.

“With her intelligence, quiet leadership, and compassionate advocacy, Ms. Nathrani has been a tremendous asset to the congressional office and to our community,” said Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP).

“Her selection as one of 13 APAICS interns this summer and now as an E3! Ambassador, along with other young leaders in academia, public service, and the business world, reminds all of us in the Northern Marianas that though our islands are small our dreams can be enormous—and that our young people have the same capacity for excellence as their peers anywhere in the United States.”

E3! Ambassadors, who are between the ages of 18 and 30, commit to “Educate, Engage, and Empower” a new generation of young leaders from their Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. The Ambassadors devote at least 10 hours a month speaking at events, facilitating workshops, or conducting outreach via print and social media to raise awareness about federal programs and resources available to Asian and Pacific Americans. In doing so, the Ambassadors work with more than 250 federal officials representing over 44 agencies and sub-agencies across the nation.

“We are expected to focus our advocacy efforts around four issue areas: education, mental health, pathways to public service, and immigration,” Nathrani says. “I plan to concentrate especially on the immigration issues facing so many young people in the islands, and I will emphasize the value of education as a tool to achieve a better life.”

Nathrani is herself an immigrant. Her parents, Rajkumar and Sapna Nathrani, brought her to Saipan from India when she was 4 years old. She is also a product of the Northern Marianas educational system, having attended San Antonio Elementary School and Hopwood Junior High School, and graduating with honors from Marianas High School in 2012. She is now a senior at Northern Marianas College and she plans to pass along her devotion to education by working as an elementary school teacher upon earning her bachelor’s degree in May 2016.

“I want to help my students create a better life for themselves, their families, and their community by becoming educated,” said Nathrani. “My parents came to the Marianas in search of a better life, and their sacrifices, hopes, and dreams made it possible for me to attain a college education. I want to help others have that same experience.”

Nathrani is also an active member of the community, serving as a voice for her peers in student government and, over the past few weeks, volunteering with United 4 Saipan to deliver relief supplies to survivors of Typhoon Soudelor.

For Nathrani, “volunteering, taking on a leadership role, and serving as an E3! Ambassador are the ways I have found to give back to the Northern Marianas and the U.S. for all the opportunities that my family has received here.”

The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders was started by President Obama in 2009, his first year in office, to increase access and participation in federal programs by Asian and Pacific Islanders, the fastest growing segment of America’s population. The Initiative is guided by an Advisory Commission appointed by the President. Sablan’s nominee, Dr. Debra T. Cabrera, was chosen to serve on the first Advisory Commission.

For more information about the WHIAAPI E3! Ambassadors Program, visit http://www.ed.gov/edblogs/aapi/e3/. (Office of the Delegate)