My name is Justin Lopez, and I am currently a senior attending White Plains High School. I am my school’s co-founder and co-president of History Club, I have been the varsity wrestling captain, I participate in Youth and Government, and I am one of the National Honors Society vice presidents. I aspire to practice law. During my time in elementary school, I can vividly remember accompanying my mother to an immigration firm to eventually become a citizen of the United States, and I was intrigued at the process she went through. This curiosity led me to an interest in law, and a lot of the things I do in my life revolve around the social sciences, and today, I am grateful and honored to say that I have been able to help my community in various ways, whether it be tutoring students for AP exams or advertising service opportunities for them in our school’s study center. However, to me, this is not enough; I feel like I can make a more impactful and meaningful contribution to my community and the world through my aspirations in becoming a lawyer. I can remember how helpful and caring my mother’s lawyer was. Through his attentiveness and dedication to helping her, he succeeded in securing her American citizenship. Whether it be securing someone citizenship, defending someone in criminal or family court, or even being someone’s counsel in a civil suit, having the opportunity to impact someone’s life to this level continues to motivate me as I inch closer and closer to higher education and serves as the final goal. I know what it is like to come from an underprivileged community; I was born into one, and I have lived in one my entire life. The Hispanic community in the United States is a community in need, and with many of us struggling to secure legal status and become more than just a people associated with crime and hard labor, these small, yet meaningful steps will help our people succeed in the world. Plenty of my family has resorted to working menial jobs just to get by because they had no other opportunity, but with legal counsel, this could change for most of them. Legal counsel for them is an opportunity; not just one to have their papers and be safe from a hostile government, but an opportunity to become successful and bring to life the almost-dead American dream. I have seen our people be wrongfully deported, and I have seen our people suffer so their children to succeed. Their struggles motivate my successes, and I want to make the world a better place for them, so they, or their children, no longer have to struggle.