Alief is known as one of Harris County’s largest melting pots. With more than 100,000 residents from dozens of countries, Alief attracts visitors who will find restaurants serving authentic cuisine from around the globe, street signs in various languages, and every type of place of worship. In the thick of it all is Precinct 4 Community Engagement Coordinator (CEC) Miracle Bui.

Miracle’s ties to Alief run deep. She lived there until she was five, then moved around Houston until finally settling back in the area as an adult. As a Vietnamese woman, she said she’s always felt at home in Alief, where she would find people who looked like her, ate like her, and spoke like her. Being in Alief made her feel proud of who she was, so it was only right for her to give back to the community she calls home.

As a CEC, it’s Miracle’s job to connect residents to everything Precinct 4 offers. One day, she could be at the Alief Neighborhood Center informing visitors about upcoming events and free health resources. The next day, she might sit down with a resident to listen to their concerns about infrastructure or safety and ensure that feedback leads to change.

Community engagement can be difficult. There’s no way to track how many people Miracle’s work impacts, but she says that it’s helpful to remind herself that every time she’s in the community, representing Precinct 4, she could potentially be changing someone’s life.

“Every constituent is my own neighbor,” said Miracle. “The struggles and challenges they're facing, I'm also facing the same because I live in their neighborhood. I am there to understand on a deeper level what those struggles are.”

Miracle has always had a passion for making an impact in the communities she lives in. Before coming to work at Precinct 4, she coordinated voter registration drives and events in Alief for the Harris County Elections Department. While she loved helping people get civically engaged, she wanted to do more for them.

“In the end, I couldn’t provide resources to families,” said Miracle. “Now, working under Commissioner Briones’s office, I have a lot of resources to provide."

Improving language access

Getting resources to a community with a diversity of needs and languages can be a struggle, but Miracle has made it her mission to meet people where they are and share information in several languages. She’s uniquely positioned to help many residents who may not feel heard in government.

“Speaking three languages really helps with navigating those cultural and language barriers that speakers of different languages face,” said Miracle. “It helps establish a sense of trust that I can help, listen, and talk to them in their own language.”

When she sets up her table at an event or community space, the Precinct 4 materials in Vietnamese and Chinese are always front and center. As residents walk over to check out everything her table has to offer, she quickly notices the language they gravitate toward and begins telling them about Precinct 4 in that language.

“If they aren't aware of what resources Precinct 4 has to offer, I'm able to explain to them in their own native language so that they can spread it to their friends,” said Miracle. “In my work, I find word of mouth goes a long way. So having the ability to speak multiple languages, such as Vietnamese, Chinese, and English really helps spread the word of what Precinct 4 does in the Alief region.

The future of Alief

To Miracle, her job has always been about more than engaging the community — it’s about uplifting Alief.

She credits 81-year-old activist Barbara Quattro for leading the charge to better Alief by advocating and fundraising for the Alief Neighborhood Center, serving as Chair for the Alief Super Neighborhood Council, and planting thousands of trees to help lower temperatures in the concrete-heavy area. Miracle believes that it’s her generation’s time to pick up the mantle of advocacy, and she says she knows it’s in good hands.

“There are many other local heroes, such as Tommy Wan from Alief Votes, who are leading the next generation of Alief leaders,” said Miracle. “It makes me proud to work alongside them, and I hope that I can continue their legacies for future generations.”

Although she knows carrying on such a legacy of activism is a big task, she believes it’s more than worth it if it means she can make Alief’s future brighter.

“I want to help make our community a better place,” said Miracle.