“A dancer dies twice,” Martha Graham once said. “Once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful.” I never fully understood that quote until the music began to fade for me. I grew up dancing. At family gatherings, school events, and Vietnamese festivals, if there was music, I moved to it. Dance became my first language, a way to express joy, pride, and belonging. But after I lost hearing in my left ear, the rhythm I had always relied on began to slip away. I missed beats, struggled to stay in sync, and sometimes wondered if the music was even still playing. The world felt muffled and unbalanced. Eventually, I stopped dancing. I had lost the sound, the rhythm, and the expression I felt through music. That was my first death. For a while, I distanced myself from the thing I loved most. Without the sound, I felt disconnected not only from music but also from a part of myself. But during high school, watching my friends laugh and glide from the sidelines reminded me that dance was never only about sound. It was about feeling. The pulse of the bass through the floor. The brush of fabric as fans fluttered through the air. The shared breath of those dancing beside me. Even in silence, movement could still speak. That realization brought me back not just to dancing but to something even deeper. In 2021, during my freshman year, I co-founded Phoenix, a Vietnamese dance group created to celebrate our culture and uplift girls like me. What began as a way to reconnect with tradition became a mission to preserve it. Phoenix gave us a space to share our heritage, learn from one another, and keep our stories alive through music and movement. We choreograph and perform traditional fan and hat dances, bringing Vietnamese cultural stories to life at events such as Viet Night, Saigon By Night, Yêu Lành, Lanterns of Legacy, and annual Tết celebrations. Each piece we perform is infused with history. Every gesture, every rhythm, honors where we come from. Through these performances, we do more than entertain; we preserve culture and pass it on to the next generation. Phoenix became a community. A place where language barriers did not matter and where girls who had once stood in the background found their voice through movement. I took on choreography, planning, and mentoring roles, helping new members grow into confident performers. Watching them shine reminded me of how powerful music and dance can be, especially for those who do not always feel seen or heard. Dance reconnected me to my identity, but it also taught me how to lead with empathy and purpose. I learned to create space for others, to honor my roots, and to express pride in who I am, even when I can’t always hear the rhythm myself. Even now, when the rhythm slips away, I move to what I feel. And when I lead others, I do so knowing that stories do not always need perfect sound to be told. They need presence, meaning, and heart. What I lost helped me rediscover what matters. And what began as silence has become something powerful: music and movement that preserve culture, celebrate identity, and carry us forward together.

I could barely tie my own shoelaces when I first encountered the word “disability.” At the ripe age of seven, there’s not much else to know other than that recess is at 10 a.m., candy isn’t allowed before bed, and problems are fleeting because you’re young. But when the world fell quiet just before recess one day, seven-year-old me didn’t realize the silence would stay with me. A few weeks later came my annual check-up. They tested my height, weight, heart, and eyes. Everything seemed fine. I sat on the exam bed, legs swinging, already thinking about going home. Then came the hearing test. The doctor ran it once. Then again. Each time, he left the room and returned a little more serious. I assumed the machine wasn’t working. I had followed the instructions to raise my right hand when I heard a beep. Simple enough for any kid. The pieces didn’t click until the doctor sat me on the crinkly exam paper, my dad beside me, and said, “Your daughter is deaf in her left ear.” The world sounded different after that. Half a conversation. Half a song. At recess, I missed what was happening on my left. My name was spoken, but I turned the wrong way. Sound wasn’t gone, just incomplete. And slowly, I realized the world wasn’t built for someone who only heard part of it. In my sophomore year, I discovered XRAI Glass, eyewear that transcribes speech into real-time captions. It was my first glimpse into accessibility technology, and it lit a spark. I began to see how devices like this could transform daily life for people like me. That spark became a purpose. I started learning Python and Java, building passion projects and studying coding tutorials late into the night. I joined Future Business Leaders of America and the Technology Student Association, eager to blend technical skills with real-world impact. But my goals do not stop at code. Outside the classroom, I co-founded Phoenix, a Vietnamese dance group created to celebrate our culture and uplift young Vietnamese girls like me. Through Phoenix, I have learned how visibility and representation can empower a community. That experience shaped how I view technology, not just as a tool but as a bridge between people, cultures, and opportunity. Though I once felt regret over my hearing loss, I now see it as an opportunity for growth. It’s given me the courage to pursue my goals in computer science, where I can create tools to help others. I dream of building real-time captioning apps that work in low-resource environments, designing classroom tools that support students with hearing loss, and contributing to open-source accessibility software. I want my work to close the gap between assistive tech and the communities who need it most. In college, I hope to continue this mission by working with mentors and peers who believe in building technology that serves people first. I want to design tools that do not just assist but affirm, that preserve language, honor culture, and create space for everyone to feel seen and heard. This scholarship would not only support my education but it would help fund a future where inclusion is the norm, not the exception. A future where girls like me can lead, build, and innovate without needing to hear the world perfectly, as long as we are heard.