Cross Ave, Salinas, California. On this street, there are colorful houses, children running around in sandals and hand-me-down shirts, parents walking home tired with their shoes open and hands filled with dirt, cars rolling fast through the street as they bump loud music, and people rushing for ice cream once they hear bells ring. This is the street I grew up on, the street that inspires my artwork, and the street I advocate for. Colored pencils and paper have always been my medium. I was always too scared to get out of my comfort zone with art. It wasn't until I took my first clay class in college that I fell in love with working with fired clay. In fact, the artwork I've decided to submit was my very first clay sculpture. Every single art piece I've done represents those I've seen on my street. With this piece, I wanted to represent a community that plays a big role in my hometown. Migrant workers. As the child of a migrant worker myself, I wanted to speak for my community and give them the shining pedestal they deserve. I started this artwork by coming up with a sketch of my future clay piece. I wanted to create a migrant worker that aged in the fields. I wanted their skin to be flakey and creased. I wanted to represent their raisin-like skin from being in the sun all day. I also wanted to contribute to the United Farm Workers flag by making their bandana the traditional red and white and adding a black Aztec eagle. I then moved on to creating the sculpture. This process was completely new to me as I had to follow so many steps. Once I was satisfied with the way I sculpted the head, it was ready to bake. However, I felt like the piece was missing something. I needed a frame for the work. I had so many ideas at first, but one idea stuck out to me. This idea was to make 3d sculptured fields with a blue sky and the poem, The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur. The reason why I chose this poem is because I see the people on my street as the rose in this poem. The rose that rises through hardships and learns to walk even with little to have. Once I painted the fields and added the cutout pieces from the poem, my frame was finished. The last thing to do was to paint the sculpted head and add steel wool and painted sand to the face. After a month, this artwork was finally done. An artwork I dedicated to my community. An artwork I made to represent my dad, my grandmother, my grandfather, and my neighbors. An artwork titled Sunkissed

In Hispanic households, it can be very hard and scary to express what gender you fancie. As we don’t expect our son or daughter to come out at the age of 7. I was in elementary school when I realized who I really am. I couldn’t turn to any of my siblings or parents as they never experience what it's like to realize you have a different sexual orientation than other people. The only thing I could turn to was colored pencils and paper. Although I could have used a poem template or flyers to express myself I find it hard to express what I really feel through anything else as art is what I used throughout my life to accept myself, find who I am, and gain new perspectives. Being able to express who I am through art is important to me as I felt trapped when I was first finding myself and when I found art it helped me gain my confidence back. I’ve used this experience to come up with different ideas on how to educate others about autism for an autism acceptance group I created. I will continue to use this as a way to think outside of the box for school, art, and for life. I will be the first generation and the first in my family with autism to attend a 4-year college. I am stating this as a way to show you that those with different abilities can take on challenges head-on. I plan to major in art and education as I want to be an Art teacher. I hope to be able to expand my creativity and art while in higher education. I want to meet new people while pursuing higher education. I also want to make an impact/change in college. I joined the first-ever autism awareness group in my high school and I led that group to the district board meeting where we expressed our feelings on stereotypes towards autism. Our speech is now gaining popularity as many begged us to use our speech in parent meetings and teacher training. This senior year I became the president of this first-ever autism awareness club. And many have joined as they told me that they wanted to learn more about autism because of a family member, about themselves, and even about their parents. Throughout this experience, I learned to accept the autistic side of myself. I want to make that same impact in college showing others what autism really is.

Hispanics/Mexicans are represented in the wrong light. We are seen in movies as gang members. We are seen in shows as overweight. We are seen as only eating tacos. We are seen as a culture that steals jobs from those in need. We are seen in the eyes of whites as aliens that rape their women and are out for blood. We are seen as coming on land that wasn't ours in the first place. We face such discrimination every day. But we do all the work. We work jobs that tire us. We work jobs that help the agricultural business grow. We work jobs that make us leave mid-year to work in Yuma Arizona. We work jobs that cause us to miss special days. If we weren't here to take up this hard job not many would fill up our shoes. Many preach about how we steal their jobs however, they would never step foot into the bone-crushing jobs we do every day. They would never spend days in the hot sun and in coolers. They would never leave their family every year missing Christmas, thanksgiving, valentines Day, and News Years Eve. We are a minority that is forgotten and is never represented correctly on the big screen. Once COVID-19 everyone went crazy. We thought the world was going to end. I remember sitting outside waiting for delivery with my older brother and the street that use to be filled with cars bumping music, groups of teens talking, Spanish music, and parties was now as silent as the streets in the white areas. I remember my father and all the other field workers heading to work with no protection. Thin mask. No gloves. Layering clothes. They all started to drop like flies. The pandemic was killing everyone as fast as the flu. Many hospital workers were dropping left and right. Many first responders were risking their lives helping those infected with the virus. Wait? Nurses and first responders something is not right. Nurses and first responders... Nurses and first responders... where are the field workers? We called nurses and first responders true Americans for risking their lives to help those in need during the pandemic but we left out a big group of people that risked their lives to provide us with fresh produce. Every day we heard about nurses and first responders being the true heroes in the pandemic yet we don't open our eyes to those that have truly been with us through the thick and thin. Field workers risked their lives every day. We didn't have protection and many of us weren't educated on how the vaccine could help. We worked every day living up to that American dream yet many of us would get sick causing a lot of the field workers to lose days of work. We were a part of that fight during COVID-19. We risked our lives and others around us. Yet we didn't get any recognition on the news. Yet we faced discrimination during the pandemic people called us dirty, people told us we had germs, and people feared getting sick by being near us. I created this artwork because my father got sick with the virus causing us to eat cereal and cup of noodles for a month. He was in the front lines during the pandemic like every other field worker and once he was caught with the virus it created a big financial problem. All of the field workers were in the front lines during the pandemic and they still are now. They are the True American Heroes.

Throughout the years I never learned how to accept myself for who I was. I saw myself as an alien with a disease known as autism. During the summer I did community service at the Reach Program. This program opened my eyes as it showed me that having autism is as normal as having a mole on your face. This program made me feel like I was at home knowing I could be myself with those just like me. Doing this program gave me the idea that those with artificial ideologies towards autism also needed to see this side of autism and not what you see in movies. Once school started again in junior year I made a group where those with autism would be able to have a safe space as they expressed their opinions on autism and how it is being seen by the world. I led that group to the district board meeting where we expressed our feelings on stereotypes towards autism. Our speech is now gaining popularity as many begged us to use our speech in parent meetings and teacher training. This senior year I became the president of this first ever autism awareness club. And many have joined as they told me that they wanted to learn more about autism because of a family member, about themselves, and even about their parents. Throughout this experience, I learned to accept the autistic side of myself. The side that helps me generate ideas for artworks and classwork. The side that makes me who I am. I created a positive circle where those like me can be themselves without shame and embarrassment hiding within the shadows. That is what I believe the phrase 'pay it forward' means. I helped my community. I helped those like me with autism. I helped them by giving them a voice and a space to be themselves. A space I wished I had. A life lesson I got from this is that we need to understand someone from within before we decide to judge them. This has actually helped me in my classes as I’ve become more open minded with my classmates' ideas. I will continue to use this in future as a way to have an open and positive mindset. I can finally say that I gave back to a community so close to me. I can finally live with the fact that I accept myself for who I am.