I have been involved with community service throughout my life. I’m blessed with parents who instilled values of service in me. When I was in middle school, my father ran a fund-raising campaign for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. While my job was to stuff envelopes, place stamps, and count cash, I realized the joy of “serving others.” We raised nearly $125,000 in 8 weeks, which helped sponsor two groundbreaking research projects. I attribute my passion for community engagement to this experience. Today, as the Vice President of the BETA club, the Outstanding Member of the National Honor Society, and a member of the Key Club (three major volunteer clubs at my high school), I make it a priority to serve the community, volunteering at local diners or organizing food drives. One of my most rewarding engagements involved spending an afternoon at the School for Affiliated Blind of Louisiana. Our job was to serve food, play games, and just talk to the people at the School. While there are opportunities to “check the box” for service hours by contributing $5 towards food drives, giving my time was more rewarding than anything else. Throughout the afternoon, we received gratitude and feedback that we made the residents feel respected and visible. In short, normal! This experience refined my philosophy of community engagement: service should be tailored to meet the recipient’s material and emotional needs, rather than fitting the giver’s conveniences and perceptions. Service that accomplishes this objective, I believe, is the highest standard of ethical community engagement.

For a large part of my life, I battled with the word “AND.” While “and” is typically a conjunction used to indicate abundance, my relationship with it has been rather torturous. I am a twin brother, which means that the Universe has generously showered me with the gift of a built-in best friend and simultaneously saddled me with a tailor-made bully for life. Growing up, my sister and I were inseparable. Wherever I was, she was too. What this resulted in us becoming a package deal - me AND her. This feeling of being “grouped” was exacerbated when we were at school. In any given playground there would be a sea of white and two specks of brown - Me AND my sister. As the only two Indians in our elementary and middle school, we became known as “the twins” - which in all fairness, we were. However, this meant that we could grow as our own person only as long as the other was there. Therein lies my contradiction - me as my own person, AND me as a twin. Whether it was out of my dad’s laziness (mom’s words, not mine!), or our aligned interests, everything we did, we did together - clubs, sports, and of course, birthday parties. Contrary to the folklore my mom tried to spin, a pink-themed birthday party does not belong in the dreams of any 10-year-old boy… Nightmares maybe! I am sure my sister felt the same way, but I knew I couldn’t wait to grow up and assert my own interests, friendships, parties, and personality. To be honest, with two children that are in the same grade, my parents have it ROUGH. Nine times out of ten, when one of us wins at something, it means that the other hasn’t. While they would celebrate one of us in a muted fashion, they simultaneously had to comfort the other. However, my sister and I always cheer for the other, pushing each other to be our best, and celebrating one’s success together. We have great LOVE that binds us. This past week, I had the honor of winning “Student of the Year” for Lafayette High School. As soon as it was announced, I hugged my sister, who was also a finalist. She is one of the smartest and hardest working people that I know; I feel like she could have easily won the title, as she did when she won the Student of the Year in Middle School, beating me. I have great RESPECT for her dedication and intellect. When it comes down to it, I wouldn't change a thing about the Twinadoes, as my mom calls us. While I am still working on improving my relationship with the word “AND,” I have learned to appreciate that being my own person and being a twin aren’t mutually exclusive. The overlap - that intersection in the Venn Diagram - is where I see the words LOVE and RESPECT. And, those are labels I can live with!

What would you do if you were given 10 minutes to share a message with an audience? That is the question I asked myself last summer. I have been a part of Speech and Debate since middle school, an activity that has allowed me to share stories and messages important to me with thousands of students across the state and the nation. Last year, I performed a piece on the stigma of depression in the Asian-American community - a burden of high expectations that culminates in thousands of suicides yearly. Depression in the Asian-American community is rarely talked about and Speech and Debate offered me a platform of almost 140,000 students nationwide. After performing this piece during competitions, I began to realize its impact. It was surprising to me that the message was resonating with students across all racial and ethnic backgrounds, not just Asian-Americans. By sharing that story, I was able to give a voice to those that were unable to speak for themselves. That is my passion. I am actively involved in various roles of leadership at Lafayette High and beyond: Student Council, BETA, Youth and Government, and of course, Speech and Debate. While I’m proud of all of those positions and the Speech and Debate awards on my resume, my focus has always been to hear the voices of everyone in those organizations and help them amplify their own voices. This is the impact I want to have. I want to provide the people around me with the tools I was given by people that came before me gave to me. As I move forward to college and beyond, I strongly believe that this will continue to be my calling.