“Throughout my k-12 education, I remember struggling to give presentations, talk in small groups, and even say my name. Growing up with a stutter gave me a different perspective on how I communicated with my teachers, friends, and family. I decided to take a chance on myself and not allow my stutter to hold me back by participating in the Miss Chinese Chicago heritage pageant this summer. When creating my platform, I knew I wanted to share my story because I felt that I would be lying to myself if I didn’t.
Since the pageant I have continued my work by hosting my first workshop on Rethinking Communication at Dominican University in partnership with Chicago Asian Women Empowerment Series, Center for Cultural Liberation, APIDA club at Dominican, and People Matter. In this workshop, I touched on topics such as how I gave a speech to 200 people, educated and discussed the different types of speech disfluencies, and how everyone can become an active listener.” – Mia Hitterman on LinkedIn