My mother is my biggest role model. She is not my biggest role model because she supports, cares for, helps, or loves me. She is my biggest role model through her constant failure to love and nurture me which has shown me how to take care of myself and what I do not want to be as I go through life. My mom decided she wanted to homeschool four of her five children including myself. This change occurred for me halfway through first grade. By the time second grade came, my mom had stopped teaching me. Instead, she would sit in bed all day and watch TV. She taught me how to lie to my educational coordinator and how to make a few last-minute samples so that my educational coordinator would think I was learning. Since then she has never gone back to helping me with homework. This led to me struggling in school throughout elementary until halfway through middle school. I would regularly score in the bottom ten percent of my class. I could not do basic math or read a book by myself. This was horribly embarrassing and depressing to me. I wanted to be just as smart as my peers but I felt I was too far behind to ever catch up. This continued until the seventh grade when my educational coordinator found out I was not doing homework. He threatened to have me put back in public school. This scared me as I no longer knew anyone in public school. To cut a long story short, over the next year and a half, I worked tirelessly to catch up to my peers. Although I struggled and still struggle I continue to challenge myself in school. I now have a perfect 4.0 unweighted GPA and have taken many community college classes in high school. Another example of my mother's failure to raise me is her constant neglect. She only cooked dinner which meant that from a young age, I had to cook for myself. My mother also struggles with her mental health a lot which has led to many instances where she would scream at me for something as small as accidentally dropping a piece of pepperoni on the ground. My mother also refused to drive me anywhere which meant I could not engage in the same extracurricular activities as my friends. This constant neglect helped me realize that I am the only person who is looking out for me. I learned to cook and clean for my family, make my appointments, teach myself, and do everything else independently. My mother has been a massive impediment to my ability to succeed in life but she is still my biggest role model. Her failure to support me and do fundamental parental tasks helped me rely on myself. Her lack of parenting has set me up for college as I am way more equipt to take care of myself in college compared to my peers whose parents have helped them every step of the way in life and school. So, my mother is an arguably terrible parent but her terrible parenting is precisely why she is my biggest role model. Not only did she show me what I did not want to be and do in life her lack of parenting shaped me into the completely independent and motivated person I am today. I am forever grateful for the disastrous role model my mother has been to me because she has made me into who I am.

I come from a very conservative and religious household and region of California. My family is devoted Mormons who are anti-abortion and against the LGBTQ+ community. These sentiments, although not tied to Mormonism in its entirety, are echoed throughout my community. Because of the conservative rhetoric that swirls around me, it has been very hard to grow up as a lesbian within my community. Throughout my entire life, I have been isolated from LGBTQ+ representation which has been very harmful to me. For example, a few months back there was supposed to be a drag show in Visalia Ca (close to where I am from) but it was canceled due to threats and protests. This shows just how hostile my community is toward the LGBTQ+ community in my area. As a child, I shared my communities ant-LGBTQ+ sentiments because it was all I knew. As I grew up and realized I am a lesbian I realized how damaging my beliefs were toward myself and other LGBTQ+ community members. I felt guilty for the beliefs I once held and depressed that there was no room for me within my community without hiding my identity. I am still in the closet and constantly fear that my friends and family will find out. Another example of the lack of diversity in my community is the prolific pro-life rhetoric circulating all over my town. Many houses and billboards share pro-life and pro-Christian messages. Although everyone is entitled to their opinions, the lack of public opposition lets these harmful beliefs dominate public narratives. If there were more diversity within my community (more progressives, pro-choice organizations, and agnostic individuals) then there would be more diversity among the opinions of people within the community. If we had more diversity in our opinions then we would have a more inclusive community. Unfortunately, it is hard to add more diverse voices to the public discourse when you already feel marginalized and unwanted within the community. I wish I could be the outspoken and loving LGBTQ+ and pro-choice member of my community that I always wanted, but I am too afraid of what my family and community will do to me if I am outspoken, which keeps me from fighting for what I believe in. This is why there needs to be more diversity within public relations in general so that all members of my community feel included, felt, and seen. When we include everyone's beliefs then no one will feel isolated within the community. This is why I believe we need more public relations like additional organizations that support people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, and much more. The power of diverse voices in public relations has the power to shape public narratives into more inclusive and diverse discourse. As I have shown, without diverse voices in public relations, marginalized groups go voiceless which can lead to threats when those groups try to speak out. This is why from the very beginning public relations need to be inclusive because inclusivity has the power to change public narratives like drag queens being dangerous and unwelcomed in my community into a more understanding and inclusive narrative like you may not like drag queens but they are welcome within the community for those who do like and support them.

In June 2020, I desperately wanted something to change the monotony of my quarantined life. Unfortunately, that change came at the end of June when I heard screaming while I was showering. I quickly rushed to get my clothes on knowing that a fight had broken out. The pandemic had stressed the relationship between my mother and sister who would regularly argue. When I heard screaming, I knew that there had been an argument and that it had turned violent. When I stepped into the hallway I was confronted by my mother and sister violently hitting, biting, kicking, punching, pulling, and pushing each other. Pain gripped my heart as I heard both calling out to me for help. I wanted to help but my body would not move. My body once wet with water was now drenched in paralyzing fear. Originally everything moved too slowly but now my world was spinning out of control. My memories from the rest of that day are fuzzy. Eventually, the police were called which put a stop to the fighting. I remember trembling, tears pouring down my face as I told the police what had happened. For over two years, I struggled to move on with my life. I spent every day in agony expecting the violence to happen again. I dealt with nightmares, panic attacks, and depression for months leading up to the trial which never happened. The one thing that helped me cope was my education. I had always been a hardworking student but now my motivation was turned toward the law. I went to my classes hungry to know everything about law and political science. My hunger could not be fulfilled in class alone, so I started reading books and articles about various aspects of the law on my own. Through my classes and my reading, I became completely enamored by social justice movements. I had originally felt angry and frustrated when my mother's court case was dismissed. I had spent years in limbo waiting for a court case that never arrived. I felt like the legal system had failed me. But when I started reading about the feminist and civil rights movements who used their frustration to bring about change, I realized I wanted to do that too. Once I realized I wanted to be a lawyer I started planning for my future. I took the hardest classes available to me and passed them knowing that they would set me up for success in college. I continued to educate myself outside of the classroom which helped me understand some of the concepts being presented in my class. And now I am applying to universities that I know will make me grow academically and set me up for an excellent law school. In 2020 I wanted something to change, and something did. I am not the same person I was in 2020. My love for law and social justice has grown through my own experiences. I am more determined than ever to fight injustice. I want to be a leader and I want to bring about change within the legal system and I am going to do that through education. The past two years have been filled with pain, but I used that pain to mold me into the motivated, inspired, and resilient person I am today.

I had always considered myself a good writer until I left my zoon journalism class in tears. It started with me wanting to challenge myself by taking a four-week summer journalism class at USC. What I thought would be a slightly challenging course turned into the most soul-crushing and anxiety-inducing four weeks of my life. An unexpected change in my story’s direction induced the worst panic attack I have ever felt. My article made me realize how important writing is to me because it helped me learn how to advocate for myself, preserve, and how manage my anxiety. Do you know what it is like to stress over an assignment so much that your hands start sweating and you start to panic? Well, that is exactly what happened to me on the third day of class when my journalism teacher told me I needed to interview and construct an article on either the impact of Covid or the BLM movement in my community. With religion being such an important aspect of my town (Exeter), I decided to interview church leaders on their response to the BLM protests that were sweeping through America at that time. This is when my anxiety started. I had always struggled with calling people over the phone because it made me anxious. My heart started to pound, and my hands started to sweat when I went to dial strangers on one of the most controversial topics of 2020. I would cry after each interview because I felt like my anxiety was holding me back from interviewing to the best of my abilities. Every day filled me with more dread. I felt like I was stuck. I was having panic attacks daily. I have always held myself to a high standard of excelling in all my classes which made it impossible for me to drop the class. Luckily, once I had finished interviewing, the church representatives, I felt like I could relax and start working on my article. I was so proud of myself for interviewing people I did not even know. I was finally excited about my article and was ready to present it to the rest of my class the following week. Then, while sitting on my red comforter on my bed, I was informed that I would need to completely change my article. With only a little over a week to go, I had to completely change my story. In front of a group of 30 students, I was the only one who had to redo their story. I was devastated. My teacher wanted me to now interview police officers on the BLM movement and not church leaders. I fought for my story, but my teacher would not listen. Once I realized I had lost the fight, I turned off my camera and started to shake and cry uncontrollably. Hot tears splashed down my cheeks as my small room started to close around me. At that moment, all I could do was curl up in a ball on my bed as I listen to my classmates excitedly talk about their articles. My panic increased as I realized I had less than a week to find and interview three police officers, draft my article, and get my article approved by my teacher. After the zoom had ended one of the teaching assistants reached out to me and encouraged me. When the teaching assistant called me, I had stopped crying, but I was still very shaken. She said that she admired how I fought for my story. She told me to look at local county and city websites where I could find contact information for different police officers. This eased my anxiety a little, but I still felt overwhelmed. I ended the call feeling emotionally drained but not hopeless. I gave myself the night off and went back to interview the next day. The next day I woke with a clear mind and started contacting as many people as possible. Once I had finished my interview I started typing like a maniac. I sat on my bed, back aching, working well into the night to pull this article off. I cannot describe the relief and joy I felt when I finished editing my article. I was so proud of what my article had become. I went to class on Wednesday to present my article. When I heard my teacher’s approval, I smiled for the first time while taking the course. I could feel the stress leave my body knowing that I had finally completed the article. What felt like the worst month of my life turned into the greatest learning experience. I am so proud of myself for writing that article and for the lessons I learned during that course. I have never grown so much as a writer and as a person as I did in those four weeks. I discovered my ability to persevere no matter what. I learned how to manage my phone anxiety and learned how to advocate for myself. These crucial lessons have shaped me into the person I am today and for that, I am beyond appreciative of that article and for writing in my life.  

I've always valued my resilience. Throughout my life, I often return to the song "Biko" by Peter Gaberial, which includes the line "you can blow out a candle but can't blow out a fire - once the flame begins to catch the wind will blow it higher." Whenever I have struggled, I have returned to this line to remind myself of my "fire" which is my resilience. life has sent me many unexpected trials like being my disabled brother's caretaker, being my family's homemaker, and dealing with my mom's legal situation. Still, through it all, I have remained a "fire" as I have relied on my resilience to get me through the hard times. It started in 2019 when my mom started having back problems. What looked to be a minor strain turned out to be a plethora of back issues that required surgery. Her back pain left her bedbound most days which meant I had to take care of my disabled brother alongside a mountain of household chores. I would get up each morning cook, clean and feed my brother, go to school, come home from school, do the laundry, do the dishes, make dinner, and clean and feed my brother all before I could even start on my school work. This occurred during the start of my freshmen year of high school which added insult to injury. I would wake up at 5:30 in the morning and go to bed around midnight. I thought this would be the worst of it but things got so much worse in 2020. During the summer of 2020, my mom got into a physical altercation with my sister and I was the only witness. That day I sat in the shower as I cried over my summer journalism class. I had been told I needed to change my story. I was beyond dismayed and depressed while standing under the showerhead when I suddenly heard screaming outside of the shower. My dad had taken two of my siblings driving which left me with my mother, older sister, and disabled brother in the house. I knew immediately my mother had gotten into a fight with my sister. Something important to understand is my mom has bipolar and her symptoms had worsened over the pandemic due to lockdown and her back pain. She had become increasingly confrontational and things had finally reached a head. I changed quickly and got out of the bathroom in time to see the end of the altercation before my mom called the police. When the police came I was crying and shaking - the pressure of the last year and a half had finally gotten to me. Over the next two years, I waited in limbo to see if my mother's case was going to court and whether I would need to testify. The case ended up getting dismissed but the emotional toll of the last two years has forged me into the person I am today. As I write this today, I am still in charge of taking care of my brother and the household chores. Sometimes I still feel overwhelmed but I chose to be a "fire" every day and never give up. I know that education is my path to stability and opportunity and I know that being resilient is the only way I will achieve my education goals. Even though the last three years have been full of the hardship I wouldn't change them for the world as they have made me into the resilient person I am today which is invaluable to me.

My teacher has always told me "you are the perfect example of 'what doesn't kill you will make you stronger.'" Why am I the perfect example of this? It's because I'm very resilient. When my mom injured her back I did all of the cooking and cleaning for my family alongside being my disabled brother's full-time caretaker and getting straight A's in school. While my friends went on trip after trip, I stayed at home, studied, and planned for my future. I have continued to maintain this lifestyle while going through the pandemic. I do all of this out of love and out of motivation. I'm motivated to take care of my family. I am motivated to get good grades in school so I can have a future. I am motivated to take care of myself. This lifestyle is not easy, in fact, it is very exhausting but I continue to live this way because I'm motivated to be a positive force in my family. I'm motivated to be a positive force outside of my family. I want to become a lawyer so I can help other people especially marginalized people like my brother who have many disabilities. I have a burning desire to make the world a better place. Where most people would have failed I have succeeded. My motivation has given me fucose and purpose in life, guiding me towards a life that I'm meant to live.