Having been born to a fifteen-year-old single mother, getting the opportunity to know my father seemed like a pleasant idea and was something that I looked forward to during my early childhood despite the tensions that had led up to my parent's separation from each other once I was born. However, shortly after I turned 10 years old, I was confronted with an abrupt reality: my father was dead. On his way home from work he was run over by a drunk driver who fled the scene after killing him. The drunk driver's name was Monica. She had been arrested for driving drunk prior to this incident and faced no legal consequences for her actions as she attributed my father's death to a deliberate suicide by him rather than to her operating a vehicle while intoxicated. The experience of my father dying when I was a child had a profound impact on my life, but I didn't fully recognize this until well into my adulthood because ever since he died, I had become focused on trying to survive in this world with less familial support than was afforded to many others at my age. It wasn't until I saw others my age visiting their fathers for holidays and major life events like weddings that I began to process the realization that my father's death meant that for years I have missed out on experiences that are normal for most people. After learning that my father's killer managed to get away with her crime by casting her drunkenness during her hit-and-run as a "coincidence," I was taught that the world is not always fair and that I would have to accept my circumstances for what they are, making up the difference for what I don’t have while teaching myself how to be a man. Losing a parent at a young age was traumatic for me, but I didn't allow it to stop me from pursuing ambitious goals. In 2021, I graduated with my bachelor's degree in Comparative Political Economics from Western Washington University, earning a 3.9 GPA and becoming the first person from my father’s family to receive a college degree. We are Indigenous People of the Ho-Chunk Winnebago Nation who have historically endured systemic oppression through American colonialism and educational institutions—which makes my pursuit of a career as college instructor deeply meaningful to me and my father's family. I am also among the first generation in my mother’s family to receive a college degree. Given that my mother’s side of my family is Hawaiian and has a similar experience to Indigenous Peoples on the mainland with the American government, my education represents a new era of empowerment for that part of my heritage as well. I am currently in the process of completing my master’s degree in History and Government from the University of Nebraska. The last class that I am taking will be held next summer, enabling me to start my new career as an educator. Since I currently hold a 4.0 GPA in graduate school, I am confident that I will perform well in the class even though I haven’t secured the funds to take it yet. In the meantime, I am working as a fundraiser for the International Rescue Committee, which is a charity founded by Albert Einstein that provides humanitarian aid to refugees in crisis zones. I work there so that I can hopefully earn enough money to afford the final class that I need to graduate by next summer while helping to save the lives of struggling people in over 40 countries across the planet.

My dream is to become the first one in my family to work as a scholar in academia and to have a transformative impact on multiple fields of social science.

As a third-generation Polynesian American born to a fifteen-year-old single mother, I learned early on that not everyone starts their life with the same advantages. Whether it was the financial hardships that marked our beginnings or our experiences with racial discrimination-advantages weren't necessary for our success. We defied stereotypes and I learned to answer adversity with tenacity. Upon reflecting on my experiences with the American legal and educational systems, I can say with confidence that the process of successfully navigating college influenced my career aspirations when I was an undergraduate student. At the beginning of my academic career, I wanted to be a lawyer, but my interests evolved as I progressed further into my education. As I gained more knowledge about political and economic systems, I developed a greater appreciation for the role that they play in impacting the outcome of legal systems. Thus, when I became better at recognizing and articulating their interconnectedness, I decided to major in comparative political economy so that I could explore knowledge from all three of these fields. Since graduating as a first-generation student, I have been planning on taking my career to new heights. I am currently enrolled in the University of Nebraska at Omaha's political science graduate program earning my master's degree in the fields of history and government. My long-term career goal is to become a political science instructor at the college level. Since I am working towards completing the program fully online from where I live in Washington State, I am forced to pay twice as much for tuition as I would otherwise because I don't live in the same state as the university for which I am enrolled in. Despite the significant financial burden I face in pursuing my career goals, my dream of becoming a college instructor drives my motivation to succeed. In previous years I was able to reduce the financial burden of earning my undergraduate degree by working part-time while taking university courses. Drawing from this experience, I still work part-time to cover my living expenses so that my loans are used strictly for tuition purposes and don't accumulate into an amount of debt that I can't repay in a reasonable amount of time. Considering that I finished my undergraduate education with a 3.9 grade point average and maintained a healthy relationship with my wife while in college, I have demonstrated that I am capable of effectively balancing multiple responsibilities. Being from a working-class, multiracial family of indigenous Hawaiians and American Indians, no one in my family had the opportunity to go to college before my generation. Embracing an opportunity that my family never had previously changed my belief about what future is possible for us and the broader nations of indigenous people whom we are related to. By graduating from university, I have contributed further evidence that indigenous people have the skill and drive to overcome historical legacies of disenfranchisement and oppression. Seeing the advancement of historically marginalized communities as a social issue worthy of my time, I want to be a college instructor so that I can work to help these kinds of students achieve self-determination through education. Even though I still have obstacles such as out-of-state tuition costs that make realizing my future career in academia more difficult, they are small in comparison to those that my mother and I endured together as a child, and even smaller than those faced by generations before us. Thus, I will press forward and continue to pursue my future the same way I did in the earliest chapter of my life: answering adversity with tenacity.