The answer to my "why?" is simple. My motivation to keep moving forward, despite the struggles, is so that I can repay my family and community for having had my back since I was small. They supported my interests in writing and community work, even when I began to doubt my ability to write and help people. Growing up, there was a lot of cognitive dissonance between how my parents raised me and how the real world treated me. I hated the comments on my "strange" school lunch so much that I began to inhale my food so the comments would stop. When complete strangers touched my hair without permission, I smiled, even if I was uncomfortable. I'd try to be the first one to leave the school grounds because I didn't want anyone to hear my parents' thick accents. My Filipino identity became a source of shame instead of pride, causing a rift between my family and me. I had so many big thoughts and feelings that neither I nor my parents understood, causing me to feel alienated outside and inside my own home. Regardless, they supported me when my ambitious plans backfired or fell through; they were there for my failures and mistakes, gave me the resources to manage my mental health, and even tried to rectify the errors in their mindset and their treatment of me. They shaped my principles and motivation to do and be better. With their help and the help of other fellow Filipinos, I was able to re-orient my sense of self and hold my head higher than I ever did before. My goal and core purpose now are to pursue a higher education, get a job in a field of my choice, and be the support to my family that they were to a younger me. In addition, I plan to use my writing abilities to promote anti-racist rhetoric geared specifically towards Southeast Asians, as well as push for an initiative to help low-income Filipino American families reconnect with their motherland and her culture. My identity as a Filipino has informed my experiences, my perspectives, and how I see myself. Being Filipino has also affected me in my academic, professional, and personal work; diversity, accessibility, and empathy are prominent features of my distinct writer's voice. It is something I wear proudly, just as I do with being Filipino.

Being a Filipino American from where I'm from not only shaped my worldview but has also greatly influenced how I want to live my life in the future. In a predominately white-populated town, I had to find my way through the stereotypes I was subjected to and the expectations of my family. All my life I had to balance my assimilation into American and Filipino culture. Having to monitor which aspects of my self, values, and beliefs I assimilate, how much of which culture I assimilate to, and the level of that assimilation. This constant vigilance is only one of the many ongoing obstacles I still face. My only goal then was to carve out a space where I do not have to constantly juggle these worries and to finally recover from the exhaustion that I had accumulated. However, as matured I realized that while I do not have a space of my own where I can rest from the stress there are ways that can make it more bearable. I found an outlet that I used to cope with my internal turmoil, Writing. From stories to essays, I used this as a way to express my feelings and detail my experience, which turned my attention to a career in copy and creative writing. I've used my interest and the lessons I have learned to hone my own personalized writer's voice that is stylized to make me distinguishable from other writers. While my proficiency in writing grew, I noticed the growing distance between me and the culture I inherited from my parents. I want to be able to one day be able to build my writing skills in my family's mother tongues, Tagalog and Bisaya, also known as Cebuano, so I get to the root of what I want to convey to my family as well as pay homage to the language they had to put aside to assimilate into the United States and its culture. I hope to become a writer who can use their skills to make a mark on the industry, world, and artistic society.