Ever since I’ve been able to conjure up a memory, there’s been music. Whether that be my parents humming to themselves while cooking, my abuelo playing Latin music from his old radio, or myself using any of the many instruments I play, there has always been music in my home and in my soul. At the age of 4, I started piano and voice lessons. At the age of 9, I joined my school’s choir and auditioned for the state choir. By 8th grade, I was a well-accredited vocalist in my state, but I always felt like I was missing something or someone. I found both in 10th grade, which was my first year in a highly selective choir. It was a treble choir, made up only of female voices, and I can still remember how terrified I was walking into the practice space on the first day of rehearsals. I was the youngest singer there in the midst of teenagers and adults combined, and I could feel some reprehension from the older singers. I meekly made my way over to the Soprano 1 section, the highest voice part, and sat down in the seat the furthest away from the rest of the singers. I closed my eyes, put my head in my hands, and tried to will away everyone’s stares. Not even five minutes passed until a woman came up to me and started talking with me, asking me about my music journey, how I came to audition for the group, and even making general small talk like, “What’s your favorite color?” I warmed up to her immediately, and little did I know, this kind woman’s actions would reflect directly onto me as I made it a bare minimum to welcome others into my spaces the way she did. The woman, named Kyra, encouraged me to audition for anything I could, no matter if I was the youngest, least talented, or even the shortest person in the room. Because of her loving stubbornness, I auditioned for the Minnesota Opera, two professional theaters, and ended up succeeding with all three opportunities. I have proudly been the youngest in all areas of music time and time again, remembering the grace and empathy that Kyra bestowed upon me. When it came time for me to welcome in the younger members for the highest auditioned choir in my school, Minnetonka Concert Choir, I made it my supreme goal to welcome the new singers into the room the way that I was once welcomed. One woman’s actions some years ago live on through me: I have not been and never will be a person who intimidates or judges another persons abilities based on looks or age. Countless times my peers have come up to me and told me how my welcoming attitude and warm manner helped them smoothly integrate themselves into musical spaces, and I dream to have that continue with me for as long as I do music, which, at least in the foreseeable future, will never end. Endless kindness and grace touches people in so many more ways than we can see; in the words of one of my favorite choral composers, “I don’t know if it is a spiritual, physiological or psychological phenomenon, but I believe now more than ever that singing is a universal, built-in mechanism designed to cultivate empathy and compassion.”

Last year, I had the incredible opportunity to work as a translator for elementary students at a Team Smile event, where most of the kids there were able to get proper dental work for the first time. I was assigned to a student named Dana, who spoke no English and had just escaped from Ecuador. From the moment I sat down with her on the bus, we instantly connected; from menial things like our favorite color, to bigger subjects like our shared partial-blindness and Hispanic backgrounds, we were like sisters from different parents. During our lunch break after an intense first cleaning, Dana sat me down to tell me her story. To keep it brief, she had escaped from a dangerous side of her family who had destroyed her house and killed one of her family members, and had wandered through the forests of Ecuador to make it to the border of the US. When she was telling me all these things, all I felt was deep-rooted awe for this child. Despite her age, she had lived through what felt like three lives in only 11 years. Our conversation only lasted 15 minutes, but it made me feel like I had lived my whole life with her. When I looked around for a chaperone to ask for the next task of the event, I realized that no one understood what Dana and I were talking about. She was pouring out her story to me, and I was the only person there who could truly hear her and understand her. I felt a wave of despair wash over me; not for me, but for the girl I was working with, for the fact that when she tries to share her story only few people will truly hear her. After the event, I immediately began brainstorming ways to enhance the lives of non-English and little-English speakers in my community. After a couple of weeks, I started a community program called the Tonka Neighbors Initiative, or TNI. This initiative recruits multilingual students from the greater Minneapolis community to work as non-profit translators for things like doctors appointments or bigger events similar to the Team Smile organization I worked with. Despite our initial success and acquiring a team of around 20 students, I still feel like my work is not done. A positive change I want to see in my community as a result of the initial event I translated for is amassing a large group of translators in the greater Minneapolis and Twin Cities area to support our large and quickly-growing migrant population. When I first learned English at the age of 9, I remember how difficult it was to connect with my peers and engage with school and extracurriculars, so I hope to be able to be the change that encourages our youth to express themselves freely and experience life at the highest quality without the pressure of using a language that is foreign to them.

As a Hispanic and Native American woman in the United States, I have constantly been told that I will never achieve much due to my heritage and previous language barrier. Despite this, I have pushed forward and strived to educate myself on all the opportunities that would be put on my path, and the one that decidedly stood out to me the most was medical anthropology. From a young age my family quickly realized that I was desensitized to death because I have dealt with it closely since the age of 9. While the concept of death has always been a struggle, the fight to bring justice to families with unanswered questions about their family members’ death is not. I have always found myself fascinated with criminology, toxicology, and serology, important studies that have been minimized by the media and the CSI effect. I, however, have been forever fascinated by medical examiners and the way they deal with all of their cases with respect and a desire to bring answers to light. Currently, as a senior in high school, I am taking a proper forensics class for the first time, and I can say with confidence that I am sure this is what I want to study. I have known for a long time that I am meant to be a light in the world, someone who is caring, respectful, and insightful, and I know that I can successfully do that while working as a medical examiner or coroner since I will have the ability to help families and friends who are working through the complex difficulties of death. With this scholarship, I can see it propelling me forward as it will relieve a lot of financial stress that my family and I have. I will be attending the University of Iowa, and the tuition is not cheap, although I know that no colleges can truly be considered ‘cheap’. My father is currently transitioning jobs, and my mother is working multiple jobs to support her three children. I have the utmost respect for my parents, and scholarships like yours are my way of thanking them for always supporting me through all of my struggles and accomplishments. In all, I want you to know that I appreciate your time and your commitment to supporting students across the globe as finances have always been a tricky subject for most families. Your generosity truly changes lives, and for that I thank you sincerely.

Sabrina Carpenter has helped me express my femininity with confidence and with a whole new level of sass. Since I was a kid, I was always known to be the kind of girl who was unabashedly herself, dressing in bright colors, wacky clothes, and confident in my identity as a woman. As time went on, however, society slowly grew on me, and not in a positive sense: social media became a method of self-deprecation for most people, women started to turn on women, and most of my peers turned away from me because I quote unquote “stood out”. I hate to admit it, but all of the comments and stares got to me, making me curl in on myself throughout all of my middle school years and first three years of high school. I changed the way I dressed so I didn’t stand out, I changed what sports I did, I changed my friend group, and even developed an eating disorder in a desperate attempt to fit into the body standards that the people around me and online had created. Around the start of my junior year in 2023, one of my forever friends introduced me to Sabrina Carpenter as an “up and coming feminist icon”. With that kind of title and high praise, I knew I had to check her out. I logged into my Spotify for the first time in 5 years and looked her up. I saw her profile photo and started to have doubts: maybe she was going to be a fake personality, someone who was trying too hard to appeal to the masses. With some more encouragement, I finally clicked shuffle and on came the first song: Vicious. I sat there, flabbergasted. I had never felt so connected to a song before. It was a simple message about being left behind, humiliated, and torn down by someone, and I felt the lyrics deep in my bones. I was addicted immediately. The second song I listened to was Feather, and that one hit me even harder. As she has released more and more music, I have consistently supported and loved on Sabrina as an artist and, at her core, a woman. She taught me that it’s okay to be hurt by the world, but you can never let the world hold you down forever. With her music, I feel like I can take on the world, and I have broken out of my shell more than I could have ever imagined. I’ve learned to dress crazy again, eat what makes me happy, join all the clubs and sports that I want to, and respect myself and my identity as a woman in this world, and for that I am forever grateful.

My most recent and first concert experience brought me such light and hope for my generation. As someone part of “Gen Z”, we often are put into boxes based on a small minority of our age group who choose to be unruly, unkind, and distant from adults. However, when I went my dream concert this summer for the jazz and RnB artist Jacob Collier, I experienced such unplugged and heartfelt love and connection that I know will never be replicated. As someone who plays the piano, guitar, cello, and sings professionally, I am always looking for people of a similar lifestyle and set of interests to connect with, but again, most of my generation tends to stick to their devices and whatever is deemed ‘popular’. When I arrived at the concert venue alone, I was terrified of being in a public space with so many people and no form of supervision, as it was my first time participating in a large event independently. Apparently I was nervous enough that it showed, because a group of boys came up from behind me and started to make small talk. I, being wary of boys and strangers in general, remained quiet and drawn inwards, but one of them quickly broke me out of it with a simple question: “Bass or cello?” Like that, I was drawn in, quickly sharing my opinion and beginning to get to know the boys. They had come from all walks of life: some college students, some high schoolers, some with no proper place to call home, but they had all bonded together over a shared love for music. I was taken aback as I had never properly met men who were open about their interests, especially ones like music that happen to be predominantly loved by women. These boys and I grew close enough together that I spent the rest of the concert with them, jumping and singing and letting myself go in the most genuine expression of joy I have ever felt. To make it even better, these boys also knew all the words to the songs just as I did, and our collective excitement got the attention of Jacob Collier, to the point where he pointed us out and joked about us having more fun than the rest of the venue. By the end of the concert, I had gotten all these boys phone numbers and exchanged what felt like my life story with them. To this day, we are still in contact, and often meet up to freely express ourselves in a way that no person could judge: through music.