Special Education has always been in a special place in my heart. When I was younger, I could never understand why I always felt such a strong pull toward teaching and helping others. As I got older, I knew it was because of the things I saw from an early age. In second grade, I had a friend named Brysin. He was always a bit different from the other students and because of that, he would face constant bullying and isolation. I still remember seeing him crying, looking defeated because a boy in our class broke his toy robot in front of him. I couldn't stand to see him hurt like that over something he had no control over. I made sure to save all of my allowance to buy him a new robot. That day really resonated with me-not because of the robot, but because it was the day I realized how deeply people can be affected by kindness, or the lack of it. As I grew older, I continued to see similar stories-students with special needs being overlooked, misunderstood, or mistreated because they had a teacher who simply didn't care about them. Every time I saw that, my desire to help grew stronger. I realized I wanted to make a real difference in these students' lives. I want to be the teacher who not only teaches her students but truly sees her students. I want to help them recognize their worth, to know that their differences aren't weaknesses but beautiful, unique parts of them that deserve to be celebrated. I hope to one day be blessed enough to work in inclusive classrooms, where I can help create a safe and supportive space for all students to come and learn together. I want to be someone my students can trust, someone who helps them grow and pushes them to be confident, compassionate leaders in the world. I feel that it truly makes a difference when a teacher cares-when a teacher chooses to invest the time and effort in nurturing students, not just academically but personally. That is what I am committed to doing. I want to guide my students to embrace their presence and to know that each and every one of them is a gift from God, capable of remarkable things. This scholarship will bring me so much closer to this dream. it will give me the opportunity to learn the skills I need to support my future students with all the love, patience, and dedication I have. At the end of the day, this is all I care about, helping my future students grow and showing them that they are seen, heard, loved, and celebrated. It will be such a blessing if I am able to shape their minds to believe in themselves as much as I believe in them as they confidently enter the world.

Growing up, I would feel this constant overwhelming urge to conceal the parts of me that were not “American” enough. I wanted to be as pretty as the girls I would see on television- their beautiful light skin and straight hair- and I would get sad when I realized I did not look like them. I felt that until I could look just like the white girls on my screen, I would not be happy or have any friends. Due to the lack of Hispanic representation, I saw as a kid I became convinced that I needed to erase my Guatemalan heritage and forget my lineage because it was not “normal”. I hated when my mom spoke to me in Spanish in public and I wanted to cry when my accent slipped out. Thankfully I was able to learn about how much of a blessing it was to be born with my heritage, and I saw how my mom strived daily to make a name for herself with her limited education. I have always dreamed to be as amazing and dedicated as my mother and admired how much she worked to provide my little sister and I with better lives than she was given. Due to me seeing all of this hard work, I told myself I was going to excel in school and in life and I was going to prove to my mother that the work she put into me and my little sister was not for nothing. As an older sister and as a first-generation college student, I have not been given an easy path. I have needed to figure things out for myself such as scholarships, college applications, job applications, all of it. I have been a dual enrolled student for the past two years and the process to get here has been extremely difficult. For me, I did not understand all of the parts of enrolling and because I was the first person in my family to ever do something like this, I was left to ask people who could never really give me a set answer. Luckily over time my mom became a major part of our community, and she was able to connect me to people who can help me out with some of my questions. Because I was blessed with a tirelessly hard-working mother who would do anything for her ids before herself, I learned that in order to be successful, one must put work into the goals. Even when we were struggling, she never let it show and had my sister, and I help out whenever possible at food pantries and homeless shelters. Her reasoning is that even if we are not rich, we are still blessed and are capable of passing those blessings on. Her kind soul and loving persona is the reason I aspire to become a special education teacher so that, like my mother, I can continue to help those in need.

Growing up, I never got to experience a father. Since I can remember, it's been my mom and me. I never knew what it was like to get that father-daughter to dance, to be called his beautiful girl, or anything like that. When I saw these other kids running and hugging their dads or saying that their dads protected them, I always felt left out because I always wondered what it was like to feel that way. As I got older, I learned that I didn't need that. I just needed my mother, who loved and supported me no matter what. My mom had me at a young age. She came here from a different country, didn't know the language, and she stopped going to school after high school. She and I have been through thick and thin, but we've always made it out together. She taught me that I didn't need my dad to feel complete. Growing up, we struggled financially a lot. We still do. As I got older, I could see the toll that took on her. When she felt like she couldn't provide my sister and I with the things we needed or wanted. One thing about my mom was she hated pity. She hated feeling like a charity case. When I turned 15, the first thing I did was get a job. I got a job so that I could help out. So that so she wouldn't have to struggle to make ends meet or to let my sister go out with her friends because she couldn't afford it. I always told myself that when I got older, I would become successful and I would give my mom the life she deserved. A life where she did not have to stress about whether she has enough money for the next bill or if she needs to save money by not buying this one thing. Another thing I saw as I got grew up was that. My mom wasn't always as confident as she looked. She was scared, scared that she couldn't provide for us, or that we would grow to resent her because we couldn't get the things we wanted. But I don't think she knows that the main person I have always wanted to be is her. I aspire to have her smarts, her confidence, and her resilience. I hope that one day I can make her proud by becoming even half the woman she is.