My passion for dental hygiene began when I realized my love for health care in high school. That passion grew stronger when my great grandma needed at-home hospice where I became one of her main caretakers alongside my grandma and my great aunt. Taking care of her oral health meant a lot to me as I knew my desired path to become a dental hygienist and because of how important oral health is in relation to keeping someone’s body healthy enough to keep fighting and comfort. Although she was in hospice care, I wanted to give her body every chance it could have to fight off the cancer. When she passed, I believed that the care I gave helped her stay just a little bit longer because she loved life, and made us feel loved every moment she was around. During this time, my grandma was diagnosed with aggressive metastatic colon cancer, and my papa suffered an intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke. All this happened during my second year of pre-requisites, and I felt my whole world was crashing down, classes getting harder, and my family going through the most difficult time in our lives. Instead of discouraging me, my love for dental hygiene just kept growing, and I knew that I had to keep going for my family. Application season rolls around, and I sent in my application. A short time later, I receive a call to schedule an interview, I was ecstatic! The first good news I have heard in a while. The time rolls around where I do my interview, I do my interview with four of the faculty at the dental hygiene program, and I feel like I aced it. My grandma accompanied me and helped me to feel confident. I like to think that she was my good luck charm. I receive a letter in the mail, an acceptance letter and I cried tears of joy! I made it into UH Manoa’s dental hygiene program, the only baccalaureate dental hygiene program in the state of Hawai’i, only accepting 20 students a year out of hundreds of applicants. I felt incredibly honored and proud to have made it into the program. My grandma just passed away recently from metastatic cancer, and I was really looking forward to her being one of my very first patients. Although she is no longer here, she is my biggest inspiration. For her I will continue working towards becoming an RDH and furthering my education in this field. With finances being the biggest roadblock, this scholarship will help immensely in taking off financial burden and allow me to focus on my studies and clinical training. Since my grandma’s passing, I have had minimal time to work, being a full-time caretaker for my grandpa and full-time dental hygiene student. This financial support would help me honor my family who pursued me to pursue dental hygiene and achieve my goal of becoming a Registered Dental Hygienist, an educator, and advocate for oral health.

In pursuit of a career in the dental field, my orthodontist and drive to be a "puzzle solver" have driven my interest in dentistry. I have always found a love for science; it helps me to stay calm and dig deeper when the information is not so clear. Dentistry offers a blend of both my love for science and puzzle-solving by working with a multitude of patient cases and getting to do so hands-on. Not only through bettering people's lives by providing them with a comforting smile and a clean mouth. I have always taken a liking to science as I always had a kind educator to lead me on the right path and make it more interesting than it already was. Growing up, I was able to get a little taste of dentistry by always being in a dentist's chair. My mom always wanted us to have great oral hygiene, though we always didn't have the means to, she made it happen. Through this, I was able to foster a great relationship with the doctor and dental hygienists. They changed my life by making me more confident in myself through my smile. I had horrible teeth and that made me extremely self-conscious about opening my mouth at all, let alone to smile. I had braces for five years, so I have spent those entire five years and counting making lasting relationships with my dental hygienists and doctor, whose name was Dr. Steven Tottori. He made a lasting impression on me and gave me the life that I have been longing for. My mom also worked for a dental office, and I was fortunate enough to get an insight into what a dental office is like from the "work" perspective. Dr. Gum, the dentist with whom she worked provided me with an understanding of the physicalities dentistry comes with. Though, he showed me why I would love the career. Despite my aching interest and desire for a career in the dental field, it comes with significant expenses. This scholarship would help me on my path toward becoming a dentist by relieving the financial burden regarding my education. With this, I would be even more delighted and committed to pursuing a dental degree. I would be able to focus all of my attention on furthering my education rather than worrying about the financial side of my education. To conclude, my devotion to dentistry has been kindled by the relationships and experiences I was able to make, especially with Dr. Steven Tottori and Dr. Gum. However, the help of this scholarship would enable me to focus on my passion for a future of making other people's oral health better and improving their self-worth.

Eating healthy plays an enormous role in one’s happiness. I believe it is important to have healthy eating habits for the health of your insides and your skin. When I eat healthier I notice that my body is more energetic, lively, and glowing. When I eat healthier I notice that my mental health is great. I am happier, and I feel like being productive. Healthy eating habits help a lot with anxiety and depression and I can attest to that. I grew up eating unhealthy foods because my family was always too poor to afford the “good” foods. I grew up on WIC and food stamps. Even now my family is surviving off of EBT/SNAP. Now that we are able to get foods that are healthy even with SNAP, we are living healthier and happier lives by keeping our bodies and minds clean. I have always noticed that people that eat healthier are more active, have organized lives, and live in a somewhat boho lifestyle. I envy those who have that type of life and have “copied” their way of life to be happier and better my mental health to be better to my loved ones. Eating and living a healthy lifestyle can definitely have an impact on those you surround yourself with and I have always strived to be my best and happiest around others to emit that energy into them and hopefully let them leave with that same positive energy. I love staying healthy because I feel confident in my own body, and I also get a sense of encouragement to wear clothes I would normally not wear when I feel gross and unhealthy. Feeling confident is extremely important to me because I love to feel good about myself and being able to feel pretty in my body and be proud of myself. I also feel confident when I am able to be productive without feeling like it is a chore or a burden. Staying healthy has caused me to be my best self, and I will continue to commit to being healthy especially if I want to maintain a healthy relationship with my significant other, parents, siblings, and friends. I would encourage all those who are able to do so, to stay healthy and eat foods that benefit their body. Eating healthy also means to moderate the portion size of what you eat, so you are able to eat things you love but in moderation to maintain that healthy mindset and still feel good about yourself in the end.

My mental health is important to me because I lost a family member to a mental health battle. She was a close cousin of mine and due to her home situation I only was able to talk to her if she contacted me first. She has influenced me to maintain my mental health wellness by taking care of myself and doing things that make me happy. I maintain my mental health wellness by doing things that make me happy, those things may include taking a shower to feel refreshed, keeping my face clean and applying skincare to make sure my skin stays clear; which makes me very happy. I also enjoy cuddling and playing with my dog Willow, and my bunny, Thumper. Animals make me very happy, and reduce my stress levels by a lot. It is extremely important to me to find new hobbies to keep me busy and out of touch with reality, because being in touch causes me to stress and spiral down a black hole. I also keep my life organized which helps a lot with stress levels and staying out of trouble and things that will cause me to make bad decisions that could possibly ruin my life. Alongside doing things that make me happy, I make sure to talk to my parents about serious issues and things that bother me. My parents used to not understand or care about what I had to say about my mental health but getting comfortable with telling them things has released a heavy weight off of my shoulders when my parents, especially my mom, knows what is going on in my life and make my life easier to live. Having a toxic parent in the household also contributes to my mental health wellness awareness. Meaning that I just tune out what he has to say and as mentioned before, doing things that keep me out of touch with reality. It also helps me that I keep a journal of my feelings and things that bother me and venting to someone I trust about it. It feels great to get negative things off my chest, and finding out people can relate is sad but it helps me to know that I am not the only one going through it. It is great to stay in touch with those people to make sure they are getting some type of love or attention to help them stay happy. If you are not receiving proper love and support from those you live with or those you surround yourself with, find someone who will help you and be there for you for what ever it is you decide you want to do. Do not allow others to have an emotional impact on you or take control of your life and cause it to deplete. Everyone deserves privacy, access to friends and family members and proper treatment. It does not matter if you have a disability, Black, White, Asian, male, female, non-binary, transgender, etc. We all bleed the same colored blood and everyone is equal. If you are treated differently because of those things and it is affecting your mental health, please reach out to a trusted loved one who understands and if no one does, just know you are not alone and you will get through your struggle. Ending your life should never be a first or last option. You are loved by many.

My dogs are my babies. I have an eight year-old, shy and timid golden retriever named Charley, and an outgoing and a one year-old, loving American pit bull, catahoula mix named Willow. Charley was my dog, as in, not a family dog, I cared for him in almost all aspects of his life. Charley lives with my dad now because of personal reasons. Willow is my family’s dog, we all play apart in caring for her. My mom and step-dad came home one night with a surprise for us all, Willow! She was covered in fleas and extremely skittish due to her previous living conditions. She has grown into a loving and energetic pup! Willow provides me with lots of love and comfort every day. When I wake up, she greets me at me door and we have a morning cuddle before the day starts. Kickstarting my day with a boost of serotonin increases my happiness greatly compared to when we did not have her in our house. I nicknamed her “Miss Willow” and call her in a high pitched voice which causes her to come running at me full speed and wiggle her body adorably. Willow and I love going on walks, she gets extremely excited whenever I pickup her leash! She loves to play with her bones and although she doesn’t drop them for you, it’s because she loves to play tug-o-war. Willow has been a learning experience and very energetic which requires us to play with her and walk her, just as a dog should be receiving. Willow has helped immensely with decreasing my stress levels and helping me find a friend outside of humans. She is my best doggy friend and I am extremely grateful to have such a beautiful and loving puppy to keep me company on my worst and best days. Just like Willow, Charley was a surprise to me. He was my first dog. My mom adopted Charley when he was just 6 months old. When we brought him home for the first time I was excited to have my very own puppy to grow with, as I was just a little girl when I got him. He slept in my bed with me every night and cuddled me until we both fell asleep soundly. He would get so excited to see me, he would pee a little. In hindsight, I should have enjoyed those little moments with him, as now I barely see him once a year. My baby was always there for me to cry on, because he was so fluffy, all my tears just fell onto him like nothing. He listened to me better than anyone else could have ever listened, and always provided me with comfort in every way that was possible. He was just as emotional as I was and loved me despite how he felt, which made him such a great family member. He was just like a person who would do anything for you despite how you treat them or how they have been treated, he’d provide all of us with unconditional love and protection. He was a huge life change, and taught me how to love others despite who they are and how they treat me. He was the kindest soul ever created. When you have a pet that moves away, especially if you’ve raised them since they were young, it hurts really bad, like a part of me is missing. Luckily for me, my Charley is with someone who I trust and has plenty of friends that are also dogs to keep him company.

My parents divorced because of the military, that changed my life forever. My mother and father met because of the military, my father was apart of the Army branch and in 2005 I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii at Tripler Hospital. I do not remember too much of my childhood, but them getting a divorce forced my sister and to live a sporadic life, we moved from house to house and we did not know what was coming at us next. I always thought it was a competition between my parents, which one was the better caretaker, which one of them showed me love more, and it tore my relationship with both of my parents apart. And that is why the military changed my life. I was about five when my parents divorced, my sister, about 2 years old. Immediately after, we had to live with my dad. From what I observed, he was looking for a woman to repair his heartbreak, and possibly to care for my sister and I. He tried his best to care for us even if he did not know much about girls and how to properly care for us. Looking back, I regret not doing more to show my love to him and let him know he was doing his best. However, when I was about 12 I moved with my dad, stepmom and my new baby and brother. When I did she was in her post partum stage and was struggling with having a baby and depression, and the way she and my dad showed more love to my new siblings worried and frustrated me. I grew to resent them all and even hated my stepmom for a while. I moved back to Hawaii with my mom and stepdad. Moving back to Hawaii was a great decision, I was happier, had more privacy, and was receiving more love. I was loving this new environment and especially enjoyed receiving attention and love from my parents. Living with my mom made our relationship stronger and I bonded with my mom on an extreme level. To this day I live with my mom and our relationship has improved extremely. I can tell her anything I go through and expect support in the end. Although she is concerned with what I am up to all hours of the day, all days of the week, she is comparable to a best friend and she loves me tenderly. Although having divorced parents is difficult, with having to keep in touch with my dad with a busy life, time differences, and struggling to come to terms with that my mom and dad have different parenting styles and different ways of living. Although I do prefer my moms life style because of her cleanliness and loving personality, I will always love my dad and be thankful for his love and sacrifices he made for me as a child. Thanks to the military, my dad met my mom in Hawaii, and I am now alive and living well because of a military assignment in 2000 and have loving, parents, as a result. I have a wonderful life with new family members and an improved mindset. I am working towards a successful life to repay what my parents have done for me. Thanks to the military, I am able to do that for them.

Food, a conversation starter that appeals to many. However, superfoods, are even better conversation starter than just plain old food, and they just so happen to be my favorite foods! They are healthy and rich in fiber, which is extremely beneficial for your digestive system. Some of my favorite superfoods include broccoli, cucumber, and avocados. To begin, broccoli is one of my favorite superfoods. Growing up in an Asian household, I learned at a young age how to enhance lots of my favorite foods so they are not boring to eat, and with broccoli, I learned to steam it in our rice cooker. With a little garlic salt is added to steamed broccoli, it makes the perfect healthy snack! Another one of my favorite superfoods include cucumbers. Cucumbers are a perfect snack when they are prepared correctly. Cutting them up into slices and eating them just like that! Even having a bit of ranch or caesar dressing makes them just that much appealing. The last but not least of my many favorite superfoods, are avocados. Living in a multiethnic home, my dad introduced my siblings and I to avocados, and from there, as with many of the foods I eat today, I learned to enhance and add avocados to any dish that I could. My dad is Mexican, and as my biological parents divorced, my mom remarried to another Mexican man, my step-dad. He also made dishes with avocados included and that inspired me to find ways to make bland tasting avocados into yummy snacks and dishes. One of my favorite dishes to make with avocados included are aguacate tacos and toast. However, just eating a avocado alone with a little Himalayan salt added to it makes it a perfect healthy snack alternative to some greasy french fries. As a young child, I got weird looks and reactions from my peers when I expressed to them how much I loved vegetables, and I simply asked them, well why don’t you? I learned that not many people my age knew how to make their food appeal to them, instead of the other way around, and that is what got me through a rough childhood of not being able to afford the yummiest snacks. I learned how to make foods that most people hated, into something I loved by just simply changing the way it was prepared and served! And that is why my most of my favorite foods are superfoods!