Volunteers are the foundation to any tight-knit community. It takes a village to get things done efficiently and in a place like San Antonio, we are a city of hundreds of villages. My immigrant family came to this country to find a better life and in order to do so they found a community of families that were in the same situation as them in this country. For two generations we flourished in the south side of the city that I am sure I would have loved to continue living in for the next few decades. However, my parents decided to move us into a small town forcing us to restart the years of community development that we had gone through. And the people who have lived here in this country for dozens of generations cannot understand how very special and important it is for the immigrants to find communities with each other. I wanted to reconnect and get to know the community I had to leave behind, therefore, to do that I began volunteering at my church of over a decade. I wanted to help keep our church growing so that in this way I don’t have to be in this neighborhood to be a part of this community. Because so many of the members of the church have lived there for their entire lives, to be in this neighborhood meant automatically knowing the people but to be living a very long way away from everyone meant I had to make myself known to be in their community. My church is home to a great community that I think that they have the best people in the south side of San Antonio whom have fellowship with one another. While the adults receive spiritual enrichment in the sanctuary, the children are taught by volunteers such as myself. I’ve learned so much from volunteering such as the importance of teaching younger generations about kindness. I realized from teaching the elementary children teachers must teach simple interactions such as sharing or conflict resolution. Not only were we feeding their minds but also tending to the child as a whole. So many children come from drastically different backgrounds and are simply trying to make sense of the world around them. I have learned how to manage classes of up to thirty rambunctious kids during my volunteering. I am hoping to use this opportunity to get classroom experience as the beginning of my pursuit to become a professional educator so that I will reach more students and more of the community I’ve become so involved in.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

The illustration I like to call “Warmth” is my favorite piece as a staple in my art journey. That is because it is the first digital art piece that I actually felt proud of. While it isn’t the best rendered nor the most impressive artwork, I’ve created it therefore it is still special to me. I believe it represents the pleasure it is to be woman. Women are so important and I have always felt safe around other women. The female experience is indescribable because we connect on another level that, I feel, men do not. Our lives begin in the warmth of a womb and our first instinct is to reach out for and to search for the warmth of our mothers. The touch of women is comforting, delicate, and also affirming and sure. This is what I believe I wanted to portray.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. My digital artworks and photography are mostly focused on how I want to see the world. I know that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. And when I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft, I continued to create. I found photographing and illustrating the world as I’d like to see it - full of beauty and whimsy - best helped my own creativity flourish.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Volunteers are the foundation to any tight-knit community. It takes a village to get things done efficiently and in a place like San Antonio, we are a city of hundreds of villages. My immigrant family came to this country to find a better life and in order to do so they found a community of families that were in the same situation as them in this country. For two generations we flourished in the south side of the city that I am sure I would have loved to continue living in for the next few decades. However, my parents decided to move us into a small town forcing us to restart the years of community development that we had gone through. And the people who have lived here in this country for dozens of generations cannot understand how very special and important it is for the immigrants to find communities with each other. I wanted to reconnect and get to know the community I had to leave behind, therefore, to do that I began volunteering at my church of over a decade. I wanted to help keep our church growing so that in this way I don’t have to be in this neighborhood to be a part of this community. Because so many of the members of the church have lived there for their entire lives, to be in this neighborhood meant automatically knowing the people but to be living a very long way away from everyone meant I had to make myself known to be in their community. My church is home to a great community that I think that they have the best people in the south side of San Antonio whom have fellowship with one another. While the adults receive spiritual enrichment in the sanctuary, the children are taught by volunteers such as myself. I’ve learned so much from volunteering such as the importance of teaching younger generations about kindness. I realized from teaching the elementary children teachers must teach simple interactions such as sharing or conflict resolution. Not only were we feeding their minds but also tending to the child as a whole. So many children come from drastically different backgrounds and are simply trying to make sense of the world around them. I have learned how to manage classes of up to thirty rambunctious kids during my volunteering. I am hoping to use this opportunity to get classroom experience as the beginning of my pursuit to become a professional educator so that I will reach more students and more of the community I’ve become so involved in.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

My church is home to a great community that I think that they have the best people in the south side of San Antonio whom have fellowship with one another. While the adults receive spiritual enrichment in the sanctuary, the children are taught by volunteers such as myself. I’ve learned so much from volunteering such as the importance of teaching younger generations about kindness. I realized from teaching the elementary children teachers must teach simple interactions such as sharing or conflict resolution. Not only were we feeding their minds but also tending to the child as a whole. So many children come from drastically different backgrounds and are simply trying to make sense of the world around them. I learned how to manage classes of up to thirty rambunctious kids during my volunteering. I am hoping to use this opportunity to get classroom experience as the beginning of my pursuit to become a professional educator so that I will reach more students and more of the community I’ve become so involved in.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to reflect someone the things I love as well as those who came before me. For illustration, I love my family and honor their legacy in my pursuit of an education. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my achievements. It is something I can be proud of and somewhat connects me with my heritage. It is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. I am aware that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met my high school art teacher who helped bring my spark back. I was amazed by his joy in creation and even now I continue to feel inspired by him. His legacy will be remembered in my work as he was the one who encouraged me to pursue becoming an art teacher. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to be someone who preserved the things she loved in her art. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. My digital artworks and photography are mostly focused on how I want to see the world. I know that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met another artist who helped bring my spark back. Connected by creation I built a strong bond with that artist and even now I continue to feel inspired by them. Their legacy will be remembered in my art as well as theirs. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Passionate people tend to work at what they love nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, they might lose their spark. Routinely, a passionate individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth; a legacy. What will be my legacy? I want my legacy to be someone who preserved the things she loved in her art. For illustration, I love my family and remember the legacy of those who came before me in my repainting of La Alma. As I come from an immigrant family, with my grandparents on both sides immigrating to the United States from Mexico, I show my appreciation for all their efforts to keep me from struggling like they did through my art. It is what connects with my heritage. And it is least I can do to keep their legacy living. So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring art teacher. I want to teach them not only the fundamentals of art but also how art can help them express what it means to be alive. My digital artworks and photography are mostly focused on how I want to see the world. I know that my students will be living in a different time than I am now and I hope to show them how to look at the world with their soul. I hope to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students and inspire them to create. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. Art is not only a pass-time for me but also it is my closest friend. I tell my deepest secrets to my sketchbook and I work through every emotion, every self discovery with a pen or pencil in hand. My art can visualize my feeling of being trapped. I had been fighting the degradation of value I felt from my work while working through discovering my identity. I felt my passion had slipped through my fingers and that my skills weren’t adequate enough having spent so much of my life practicing my craft. Even still, I continued to create. Many of the works I had made during that time were trashed. But things got better, as they often do, and I met another artist who helped bring my spark back. Connected by creation I built a strong bond with that artist and even now I continue to feel inspired by them. Their legacy will be remembered in my art as well as theirs. My desire is that my rediscovered love for art will forever remain preserved in what I create.

Volunteers are the foundation to any tight-knit community. It takes a village to get things done efficiently and in a place like San Antonio, we are a city of hundreds of villages. My immigrant family came to this country to find a better life and in order to do so they found a community of families that were in the same situation as them in this country. For two generations we flourished in the south side of the city that I am sure I would have loved to continue living in for the next few decades. However, my parents decided to move us into a small town forcing us to restart the years of community development that we had gone through. And the people who have lived here in this country for dozens of generations cannot understand how very special and important it is for the immigrants to find communities with each other. I wanted to reconnect and get to know the community I had to leave behind, therefore, to do that I began volunteering at my church of over a decade. I wanted to help keep our church growing so that in this way I don’t have to be in this neighborhood to be a part of this community. Because so many of the members of the church have lived there for their entire lives, to be in this neighborhood meant automatically knowing the people but to be living a very long way away from everyone meant I had to make myself known to be in their community. My church is home to a great community that I think that they have the best people in the south side of San Antonio whom have fellowship with one another. I’ve learned so much from volunteering such as the importance of teaching younger generations about their heritage. I realized from teaching the elementary children in my church that the majority do not know where their parents or grandparents came from. Not only were we feeding their minds but also their mouths. So many children came to us on empty stomachs and it’s understandable they would constantly ask for a snack throughout the day. I learned how to manage classes of up to thirty rambunctious kids during my volunteering. I am hoping to use this opportunity to get classroom experience as the beginning of my pursuit to become a professional educator so that I will reach more students and more of the community I’ve become so involved in.

Many LGBTQ students have to deal with the stress of academic expectations as well as trying to understand themselves and the world around them. Growing up with homophobic parents has led me to believe the only way I can prove my worth is to be successful. While I am not yet “out”, I still feel I owe them something in return for the disappointment they’ll face when they do find out and in order pay them back I must succeed, I must excel in school. However, that’s difficult when I am constantly tormented by the thought of never being enough. I’ve considered ending my own life to make things easier on my family since I know I will be considered dead to them anyways for loving whoever I choose. I couldn’t open up to anyone about my struggle as I felt I only could rely on my prayers to God to be kept secret. I did everything in my power to make sure my family wasn’t burdened by who I am. Another reason my mental health is overlooked by my parents is that I have a special-needs sibling. I don’t blame my younger sister for needing so much more attention than the rest of my siblings and I but it’s makes it hard to find support in my own home even without my parents knowing about my being a homosexual. The way I’ve been able to cope is by finding a community where I feel I belong; that is marching band. Although my band mates aren’t aware of my homosexuality either, I know that if I were to come out to them, I would be accepted. I’ve met so many other queer people in band that inspired me to cherish who I truly am. And the fun times I have with the band distract me from all the hardships I face daily. Plus, I get to be active as we are a marching. Being in the sun, practicing for hours on end, and competing keeps my detrimental studying habits at bay. All the time I spend with the band reminds me as well that, I am not just a grade. My worth goes beyond what I achieve in class. This is why maintaining good mental and physical well being is so crucial to LGBT students. I don’t want to say that I am most deserving of the scholarship because I know there are other queer students who struggle just as much as I do, some, even more so. I simply want to have a chance at supporting myself if or really, when things go wrong and I am disowned by my conditionally loving family. It’s the difficult reality that I, as many queer people do, face. I can only hope that my achievements and the community I’ve built will be enough to rely on.

Many LGBTQ students have to deal with the stress of academic expectations as well as trying to understand themselves and the world around them. Growing up with homophobic parents has led me to believe the only way I can prove my worth is to be successful. While I am not yet “out”, I still feel I owe them something in return for the disappointment they’ll face when they do find out and in order pay them back I must succeed, I must excel in school. However, that’s difficult when I am constantly tormented by the thought of never being enough. Another reason my mental health is overlooked by my parents is that I have a special-needs sibling. I don’t blame my younger sister for needing so much more attention than the rest of my siblings and I but it’s makes it hard to find support in my own home even without my parents knowing about my being a homosexual. The way I’ve been able to cope is by finding a community where I feel I belong; that is marching band. Although my band mates aren’t aware of my homosexuality either, I know that if I were to come out to them, I would be accepted. I’ve met so many other queer people in band that inspired me to cherish who I truly am. And the fun times I have with the band distract me from all the hardships I face daily. Plus, I get to be active as we are a marching. Being in the sun, practicing for hours on end, and competing keeps my detrimental studying habits at bay. All the time I spend with the band reminds me as well that, I am not just a grade. My worth goes beyond what I achieve in class. This is why maintaining good mental and physical well being is so crucial to LGBT students. I don’t want to say that I am most deserving of the scholarship because I know there are other queer students who struggle just as much as I do, some, even more so. I simply want to have a chance at supporting myself if or really, when things go wrong and I am disowned by my conditionally loving family. It’s the difficult reality that I, as many queer people do, face. I can only hope that my achievements and the community I’ve built will be enough to rely on.

I am the second generation in an immigrant family. My grandparents on both sides traveled to the United States from Mexico later on in their lives with the ambition to create a better future for their children. How can I not appreciate all their efforts so that I wouldn’t have to struggle like they did? The least I can do to keep their legacy living is to keep working hard to achieve the dream that they wanted for me. That is why I work hard in school everyday. Not only do I strive to get high marks in each of my classes, but also I am a member of our school’s Mighty Tiger Band and have been all four years. I practice every day after school for three hours to put a great show on the field. I have gone to state championships two years in a row with the band and I am proud to have contributed to all of our accomplishments. We made it as a result of all our efforts and hard work. Just like in life, I must work hard to make it into my dream college. I want to be accepted into the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) because number one, it is a very community based college. I grew up in San Antonio and feel very connected to the community to this day. I also know that if I do attend the UTSA that there will be many Hispanics who are just like me and speak my language. Another reason I hope to get accepted is because of the art program they offer. My passion has always been art, it allows me to express myself and I want to pursue a career doing what I love most. Unfortunately, college grows increasingly expensive each year. I would not want to financially burden my parents which I why I have been applying to every scholarship that I can. I know I probably won’t get selected in majority of the scholarships I apply for but I have hope. On top of applying to scholarships, I also work in the summer. Picking up odd jobs here and there brings in money that I have been saving throughout my high school career. Working in food service is my least favorite source of income but I have got to do what is best for my future even if it is draining most days. To conclude, I know if I do not stay ambitious then I will have nothing to keep me going. My drive is the ambition of mis abuelos and I hope I will be considered in the selection for this scholarship.

Ambitious people tend to work nonstop. They live with the notion that if they do not keep working, nothing will get accomplished. Routinely, a determined individual yearns for more opportunities to seize their objectives, their holy grail. Their persistence makes you wonder, “What drives them to stay motivated?” To answer, they are driven by the desire to build something that will continue long after they leave this earth. Now what will be my legacy? The definition of legacy is the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life. Although I am ambitious, I still have moments of laziness. For illustration, I will have something due and I’ll say to myself I have to get it done today yet, I’m still on my bed and my phone. But then I remember the legacy of those who came before me. I come from an immigrant family. My grandparents on both sides traveled to the United States from Mexico later on in their lives to create a better future for their children. How can I not appreciate all their efforts so that I wouldn’t have to struggle like they did? The least I can do to keep their legacy living is to keep working hard to achieve the dream that they wanted for me. Like Lin Manuel Miranda said, “Immigrants, we get the job done.” So what do I do to make sure my legacy is secured? Well, my impact would be on the next generation as an aspiring teacher. Growing up in a household with both a teacher mother and a police officer father I am well aware of how important public servants are. I was taught that teachers are the ones raising the next generation, our future leaders. Maybe the person who taught you to tie your shoes or that “sharing is caring” was your mom or grandparent but for a lot of kids they are taught more than what’s in the books, they’re taught life lessons by teachers in every grade. This is my goal; to not only touch the minds but also the hearts of my future students. I want to help my students learn to think creatively while teaching them all about a subject I’ve loved all my life. To conclude, I know if I do not stay ambitious then I will have nothing to keep me going. My drive is the ambition of mis abuelos and my impact will be what I am able to do for the next generation. So what drives you? And what impact will you leave behind?