I was raised in an incredibly diverse community and had the privilege of attending the Spanish program of a language immersion school, which fostered my interests in learning about different languages and cultures. My elementary school also had a Japanese language program, and I was able to celebrate the annual cultural festivals of Japan and Latinoamérica since I was very young. In fourth grade, I had an opportunity to further explore new cultures and languages by becoming part of the National Children’s Chorus. The music we learned broadened my interests of other cultures, since we were able to sing in Mandarin, Japanese, Tagalog, Korean, French, Italian, Hebrew, German, Armenian, Hindu, and Latin. All of the local performances I participated in reinforced my love for languages, culture, and understanding. In 2019, I had the opportunity to tour with the choir in Japan and South Korea. In South Korea, our choir sang at the Lindenbaum Peace Festival in the Demilitarized Zone. Originally, we were supposed to perform alongside North and South Korean orchestras in an international performance asking for peace in a place that was haunted by decades of separation and suffering. Surrounded by minefields, signing alongside the South Korean youth symphony in the DMZ was an unforgettable experience and one of the most incredible things I have done in my life. There is so much power in understanding the histories and cultures of a place, and this performance was really transformational in my life because it made me want to understand the history of other countries. Being able to partake in a historical moment somewhere with such a profound history was so moving, and it encouraged me to take on AP history classes throughout the rest of high school. While traveling through South Korea and Japan, I was also able to experience cultures very different from the American one. Everyone cooperated with and respected each other, and both countries were shockingly orderly. In Japan, we had the honor of collaborating with a children’s chorus in Kyoto, where we performed and made origami together. Meeting students from other parts of the world was incredible, and despite the language barriers and cultural differences, we were able to connect through music. Interacting with Japanese students, I was inspired by the respect that they had for public spaces and their environment. Everyone carried around their trash until they got home because Japan doesn’t have public trash bins. Students also shared the job of cleaning their classrooms, which is why there is such an effort to keep public spaces clean, starting with having separate school shoes and outdoor shoes. Traveling with a large group of Americans who had no interest in respecting Japanese culture was incredibly eye opening, because it made me confront just how little we respect our shared environments. I was able to observe the faults of our American society by being exposed to another culture that was much more respectful of the world we live in and share. This trip to Japan was what sparked my interest in environmentalism, which I was first introduced to as a sociocultural movement. I aspire to learn about how global cultures interact with and respect the environment, and hope to bring back that knowledge and those practices to an American society in need of cultural and environmental remediation.