Why doesn't Daddy celebrate Thanksgiving? Why does black mean bad and white mean good? Where does God come from? These questions filled my 5-year-old mind. Like most children, I was an endless stream of questions; however, the journey to my answers was more complicated. I attended a predominantly white private school in the upper echelons of New York City. With no template for who I was or what I ought to be, I was constantly searching the world for answers. What I found amongst my peers was dissatisfactory. My classmates' ideas of what beauty, success, and cool “should be” had nothing to do with me. Over time, I began to view myself through all the lenses I had adopted. I was unable to see myself clearly or love myself clearly. Middle school is never a fun time. However, with age came, for better and worse, internet access, and on YouTube I discovered a new world I did not see around me. Online, people looked like me, nothing like me, and everything in between. They questioned everything. I was captivated: Vox, Vice, YouTube video essayists. To these strangers on-screen, there was no “should.” I immersed myself in discussions of race, gender, politics, and history. Gathering information on once-scary labels gave them meaning—being gay, Black, or a woman became personal. It was a long journey to realize those things meant what I chose. Lacking examples for who I was “supposed” to be, I began creating myself from fantasy, family, and stories. These stories lluminated my identity and sparked my passion for journalism. Now, I seek to dissect the truths we accept and highlight moments of change. When I began the newspaper club at my school, I thought of the small businesses in my neighborhood that rising rents had wiped out. Knowing that many students in my high school ate at fast-food joints out of familiarity, even though small businesses were serving better food at the same prices, I interviewed and recommended these local businesses. This way, we could use our spending power to keep our neighborhood's integrity. Currently, the school newspaper continues to regularly interview small businesses and foster relationships between them and our high school community. Expanding my efforts further, on P.S. Weekly, a news podcast about the NYC public school system, I continue to uplift local voices. As a student producer, I’ve covered the experiences of youth working to make change in response to issues of sex education, climate change, and more. I believe in independent journalism, and I want to devote my life to building a platform that highlights the truths of everyday people without being influenced by corporate interests. This scholarship will enable me to obtain journalistic training to launch my career. Writing is how I use the history I have been told, the stories I uncover, to tell new narratives about who we are. I plan to show the world there are endless truths out there. The more we understand each other, the more we understand and accept ourselves.

For the first time in my life, I had no idea what to write. But it wasn't writer's block. I had begun working as a reporter and producer on P.S. Weekly, an audio journalism podcast covering the NYC public school system. I was assigned to propose an original episode in just a week, and I was at a loss. Trust me, there is no shortage of problems within NYC public high schools. However, when I came into my role as a reporter, I made a promise to myself. Oftentimes, watching the news makes me feel defeated. The information that is supposed to connect me to the world ends up making me feel more estranged from it. So, I didn't just want to report on what was going on. I wanted to tell a story that showed my listeners a way that they could create visible change in their lives and communities. I was just days before my deadline and still out of ideas when I started talking to my friend, Alice. She regaled me with another story of her composting efforts. For the past two years, Alice had been trying to get my school into compliance with NYC law by implementing a composting program. Still, the horrors of bureaucracy thwarted her at every turn. I was curious. Then I realized that this was it, the feeling I’d been looking for. This was my story. Over the course of the interviews, Alice and I brought the laws my school was breaking to my principal's attention. We helped him invite our district's director of sustainability, who expressed her gratitude for the advocacy we were doing that brought the issue to her attention. She recognized the neglect that our school had endured and helped us start a composting program, which is still in place today. This episode that once terrified me has since become a motivator for me to pursue journalism and documentary in college. There are so many voices that are never heard. Yet when we shine a light on these stories, we can find new allies and opportunities for change. I have always dreamt of what I wanted society to look like. Writing is how I show the world, and myself, that the future we hope for inside our heads doesn't have to stay there. I plan to build a home for reporting that provides concrete solutions to real problems in hopes of showing more people that they can make a difference.