News 12 Connecticut is celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month throughout May by recognizing the contributions and influence of Asian Americans in our communities.

News 12’s Lauren Fabrizi met with Rose Healy, a Fairfield Public Schools educator for 14 years, whose lessons are taught both inside and outside the classroom.

She explained that Rose Healy was a name given to her by a college professor in the U.S. nearly 30 years ago. Her Chinese name is Wang Xin.

"She did say that 'Rose is a beautiful flower, so it fits you perfectly,'" she told News 12.

Healy was raised by her grandparents in Shanghai, China while her parents earned a living in Beijing. When she was 7 years old, she moved to Beijing to reunite with her parents and attend school there. After graduating high school in 1987, she made the tough decision to leave her family behind and come to America.

She made a new home in Norwalk. Healy says all she had was a dictionary that she carried everywhere she went.

Healy stayed with a sponsor family and graduated from Sacred Heart University in the early 1990s. She landed her first job working in finance in Cos Cob.

A few years later, she met her husband, Tim. They moved to Fairfield and had their daughter Emily.

Healy had been a stay-at-home-mom for several years when she transitioned back into the workforce – this time in a role that would encompass her heritage.

"The district of Fairfield Public Schools, they were thinking of opening a Mandarin Chinese program for high school students," she says.

Currently, Healy teaches language and culture at Warde High School – using her vast experience as a guide.

But her lessons aren't just taught in the classroom. She's taken her students to China and recently, she and her students participated in local *Stop Asian Hate* rallies.

"For people to realize, we are living in the same community, same country, we should not have hate," says Healy. "I want to make sure all my language students and my culture class students, they understand if their teacher can do it, that they can do it."