My financial situation has made pursuing college incredibly scary, especially when considering that I am working on a fine arts degree. My family supports me, but it's hard to get the knowing glances from other folks who think I'm making a bad decision. I feel lucky to have a family who believes in me and my abilities as an artist. I'll be honest, I don't know where my career will even lead me. However, what I do know is that my college education so far has been incredibly enriching to my life as a creative person. Because of my financial situation, I cannot take summer classes. It may seem not very important at first, but with the class course load that my major requires, summer classes almost become necessary at some point. My major requires that I take 6 classes every other semester, while other majors need to take only 4 or 5. The reason I'm able to go to my school at all is due to the scholarships my school awards me, but if I'm not on track to graduate within 4 years, suddenly all that money can be taken away. God forbid if I struggle with maintaining my grades in one of my many classes, else I can't receive that money either. Being a low-income student is a constant struggle defined by fear of my resources being taken away at a moment’s notice due to human mistakes that anyone would make. At the same time, I’m very lucky to be receiving the financial aid that I am, scholarships and all. School has provided me with a unique learning experience that I feel has enriched my life in ways not available elsewhere. Not to mention being part of a wonderful community of other artists that I take from as a pool of inspiration and creativity. For someone with so little resources, I think I dream pretty big. I dream of a new utopian world, where discrimination has been nearly eradicated, where queerness is celebrated, where everyone's needs are taken care of... but I digress. I don't know what I (realistically) dream about except for a future guided by my values of compassion, hope, happiness and community. That is where art comes in: it brings communities together, and helps to develop the values that hold them together like a strong glue. Art is seen as lesser than other academic disciplines because it is perceived as relatively useless compared to engineering or medical sciences. But there is a reason why art projects are one of the first things communities invest in when trying to form their foundations. It has a distinctive ability to communicate remarkably human ideas and feelings which spur on extraordinary things in all of us; it inspires hope that we are all interconnected in more ways than we really know.

I've had the words to describe my queerness since I was 10 years old. Over the following 9 years, my language and understanding of my community went through many changes. I've felt a range of emotions about my community, positive and negative, but it soon landed on a deep kinship, compassion, and love for other queer people. But, this didn't happen until I found a much more vast in-person queer community when I turned 18. It's crazy to me how long I spent agonizing over my identity and what it meant for me. A little over a year ago, I met my current best friend, a non-binary lesbian with extreme levels of pride in their identity and community. For a lot of my youth I didn't understand what it was like to have so much pride and unconditional self-love when it seemed like the world was constantly antagonizing me simply for existing in a way that was comfortable to me. Meeting my best friend kickstarted a desire to learn more about the history of the LGBTQ+ community- not the purely online communities I spent so many years relying on for a sense of belonging. A quick disclaimer: there is nothing inherently wrong with online LGBTQ+ communities or being a part of them. It just so happens that in my experience, they unfortunately hold a lot more potential for bullying and harassment campaigns that just aren't tolerated in many in-person communities. Learning about the history of the LGBTQ+ community in the United States and around the world has been an extremely enriching and fulfilling journey. One of my favorite people I've found so far is Jose Esteban Munoz, whose writing on queer utopia had given me so much peace within, and a newfound intrinsic motivation for activism. My best friend's queer heroes include Alison Bechdel, an influential lesbian comic artist, Leslie Feinberg, author of Stone Butch Blues, and Laura Jane Grace, singer of Against Me!. There are almost too many people to mention to create an exhaustive list of those I look up to; JessieGender, Maia Kobabe, Kat Blaque, Natalie Wynn... but some of the most important queer people to me have been community members I've met and have friendships with in real life. Theory, while valuable, can only go so far. Learning about my local community efforts and the people involved has helped me develop a deeper understanding of what it means to be a part of a community. To me, that is to aid, advocate, and lend empathy to those whom the rest of the world has a difficult time understanding. It is empowering to have conversations with others about queerness and our unique life experiences. From these conversations, I have a deeper motivation to get more involved in my community through the arts. I believe giving people the ability to express ideas through art is much more valuable than many people think. Artworks are pivotal in beginning conversations on the exclusion and violence that many queer and BIPOC people face. One piece that comes to mind is "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. This piece called to attention the effects of the AIDS crisis in the 20th century, inviting empathy from the viewers to think more critically about everyone's role in their relationships with one another. I aspire to make art that can emotionally connect to my community in this way. Whether that comes from working in galleries or art centers, becoming connected with local communities is most important to me when it comes to social justice.

According to a 2018 study, an overwhelming majority of Americans(74%) believe that treatment for mental health is not accessible for many, despite the fact that the number of Americans seeking mental health treatment has never been higher. I believe, after much past research on the history of mental illness treatments all over the world, that accessibility and the diminishing of stigma are the most important factors of providing solutions for people with mental health. Some of the largest reasons that people believe that therapy and treatment are not accessible are costs, insurance, and time. People who tend to struggle the most with mental health are people of minority groups, queer people, and those born into the lower class. It is extremely clear to people today that all of these intersect with the fact that healthcare is dangerously unavailable and much too expensive for those with lower income. As America struggles to move forward with making healthcare free, nations in Europe are proud to provide affordable healthcare, making it a very small issue. In America, mental illness is widely misunderstood and unaccommodated for especially in poorer communities. This becomes harder for those convicted by the law- prisoners with mental illness in the USA are treated poorly by police guards as well as their own doctors and psychologists, according to mental health blogger Rachel Finsi. As the largest factor of accessibility is lack of healthcare, one solution may be to make treatment localized for each community. When communities themselves are able to elect for programs and funding themselves, they can then focus on local stigmatization, and suddenly the conversation of mental health becomes much less scary for some. I don't believe any one policy is perfect, but we can at least work from the local level to advocate for accessibility.