Special Needs Advocacy Inc. Teresa Politano Memorial Scholarship

Twenty-odd summers ago, I was born in the Salinas Valley, a sunken piece of land off of California's Central Coast. My grandparents settled there after years in the Bracero program, after the countless trips across borderlands, into that hollow cool where work was available year round. For decades they labored upon the land, picking crops 'till their backs broke, tending to a community that could not be as easily uprooted as they were. My dad was born into this valley, my mother — who is a product of California's Inland Empire — says that he'll die there, that the land will reap what it sows. I was born into this legacy: laborers, amateur musicians, and a history that would only be as long as memory could serve. I was born into corridos, tall tales, and old-world superstitions — the only imports my grandparents could bring with them. A century before my family settled in the valley, in an East side low-income apartment with ceilings that snowed when the upstairs neighbors got home — John Steinbeck was born into that same valley, prophesying a curse upon the land. I grew up "East of Eden," where the valley's beauty remained just as cruel. This prophecy lives on: with underfunded public schools, a homicide rate double the national average, and a population where only 15.5% have a Bachelor's degree (and only 3.6% have a post-graduate degree) — despite its agricultural fertility, the land kills anything that tries to survive. I attended UC Berkeley because I knew I wanted to advocate for those who raised me, those who have historically been ignored. Coming from the Salinas Valley influenced my value of education, my studies at UC Berkeley has pushed me to share this education outside of the "ivory tower" of academia. I found journalism as a way to research, document, and write stories in service of the public, rather than a select few. Through my time writing for multiple on-campus publications, serving as a head editor at The Daily Californian, and interning at local non-profit powerhouse Mission Local, I found my journalistic interests lay in the intersections of power, technology, culture, the arts, and people with an overall mission to uplift voices from marginalized communities. These interests have manifested in coverage from Oakland's queer black and brown ballroom community, the Mission's Chicana Muralist Collective, to century-old legacy businesses of San Francisco's Excelsior district. I've interviewed Oakland graffiti artists, black lesbian rock bands, and a guerilla bench collective, immersing myself in the people that define the Bay Area. My reportage covers the people who aren't always noticed and I see this passion for advocacy only expanding in the next two years at New York University's Graduate School of Journalism. I see journalism as not only career, but a duty and a public right, built on the foundations of truth, equity, and a commitment to the public. From my time in local news to my time in graduate school, I am and will continue to be committed to the covering marginalized populations in service of a more equitable future.