In second grade we took turns answering, “If someone could play you in a movie, who would it be?” I sat there not listening to anyone except my own thoughts while I panicked. As the only Asian student in the class, I saw all eyes looking at me when it was my turn. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember how I felt. I felt stupid and thought it was so unfair these students had so many different choices. As much as my teachers encouraged imagination and dreaming big, I felt like that advice excluded me. Years later at 18 years old, I gained the confidence to know that I have the ability to change that perception. I think back to that experience and I think it’s interesting how small questions and experiences can have such an impact years later. Because around the same time that happened, I told my parents I wanted to be an actress. I just saw the Disney Channel and I thought it would be fun. It was a harmless little comment from a six-year-old. My dad pointed at the Olympics on the TV and said, “Do you see any of us winning? No. We stick to what we’re good at.” I didn’t understand why he said that. What was I supposed to be good at? Being against acting was no longer the main issue, but it was finding out what Filipino Americans are supposed to be doing. All my six-year-old brain picked up was, “No arts. You don’t belong there. Find something else.” And that stuck with me for over a decade. I never even thought about pursuing acting until the lockdown in 2020. I spent hours watching movies and I spent my time after class memorizing monologues. When I see Asian/BIPOC characters still being confined in stereotypes in movies or shows, it only further fuels my passion for my need to pursue the arts. I feel as if it's not only a passion, but a need to show how important representation is, especially for kids my age who were told the arts weren't meant for them. I feel a spark in me when I memorize monologues or watch recordings of myself. There’s a spark to do better or a spark of joy celebrating my performance. When I pursue my other hobbies like running or coding, I don’t feel that special spark. It’s a very specific feeling that I intend to chase forever. I want to do art to make a change, to be that someone I longed for on the screen when I was younger. This goal and career of mine are important to me because it’s what I love. There’s no greater feeling than watching yourself nail a monologue. When you’re born, there’s no set path on which you should be on. Everyone should be able to choose who should play them in a movie without hesitation or shame.

In second grade we took turns answering, “If someone could play you in a movie, who would it be?” I sat there not listening to anyone except my own thoughts while I panicked. As the only Asian student in the class, I saw all eyes looking at me when it was my turn. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember how I felt. I felt stupid and thought it was so unfair these students had so many different choices. As much as my teachers encouraged imagination and dreaming big, I felt like that advice excluded me. Years later at 18 years old, I gained the confidence to know that I have the ability to change that perception. I think back to that experience and I think it’s interesting how small questions and experiences can have such an impact years later. Because around the same time that happened, I told my parents I wanted to be an actress. I just saw the Disney Channel and I thought it would be fun. It was a harmless little comment from a six-year-old. My dad pointed at the Olympics on the TV and said, “Do you see any of us winning? No. We stick to what we’re good at.” I didn’t understand why he said that. What was I supposed to be good at? Being against acting was no longer the main issue, but it was finding out what Filipino Americans are supposed to be doing. I felt as a first-generation student, my dad found the arts to be the opposite of the American Dream. All my six-year-old brain picked up was, “No arts. You don’t belong there. Find something else.” And that stuck with me for over a decade. I never even thought about pursuing acting until the lockdown in 2020. I spent hours watching movies and I spent my time after class memorizing monologues. I feel a spark in me when I memorize monologues or watch recordings of myself. There’s a spark to do better or a spark of joy celebrating my performance. When I pursue my other hobbies like running or coding, I don’t feel that special spark. It’s a very specific feeling that I intend to chase for forever. I want to do art to make a change, to be that someone I longed for on the screen when I was younger. This goal and career of mine is important to me because it’s what I love. There’s no greater feeling than watching yourself nail a monologue. When you’re born, there’s no set path on which you should be on. Everyone should be able to choose who should play them in a movie without hesitation or shame.

Oakland, California is named one of the most unsafe top 10 cities in California. I always thought it was funny how my military ROTC academy was placed right in the middle of it. Every day I walked into school, I looked at the broken glass and car windows beneath my feet. When I looked up, all I saw were adults in military uniforms greeting me with a warm hello. While I thought it was a bit odd how my academy constantly juxtaposes its surrounding environment of East Oakland, when I got into higher leadership I saw just how important my school was to not only me, but to the majority of our student population. Being apart of ROTC taught me so many life skills I still use to this day, and it involved hours of planning and volunteering throughout my 4 years in higher leadership. ROTC made me think of my own self-development, but more importantly, the students that I serve. These students, much like myself come from neighborhoods where being low-income was the norm, and the lack of opportunities both academically and leadership-wise were always absent. Within ROTC, it gave us a voice and the opportunity to seek higher leadership. It pushed us to develop crucial skills of time management, event planning, and team collaboration. Opportunities where we otherwise, wouldn’t be able to get them anywhere if we were a regular high school. When I think about what kind of roles I want to hold in the future, it always circles back to giving back to my community in some form. It’s those communities were I grew and succeeded as a person, and I have a need to serve those who were in my same shoes. With the hours of volunteering and pursuing academics full time, I am very lucky to be an undergraduate at UC Davis as a freshman. I come from a low-income household, where my father has been working as a nursing assistant for the past 25 years. I receive financial help for college through my dad’s hard-earned salary, and my dad will work overtime to make sure I graduate with no debt despite his hereditary heart attack ten years ago and knee injuries. My parent’s sacrifices have always been important to me and has become one of my main motivators in pursuing higher education. My parents immigrated from the Philippines and has worked tirelessly to ensure my siblings and I are succeeding mentally, academically, and financially. My parents worked hard financially so my siblings and I never had to worry about picking up a job while being a student, even if that meant enduring their own pain and injuries. If I got this scholarship, it would lift such a heavy weight off of my father’s shoulders and this would help pay off the eternal gratitude I have to my parents for their endless sacrifices for my education.

Growing up, film was always a defining factor in my life. I define my adolescence to adulthood based on the films I’ve seen. From childhood, it was High School Musical, in middle school, it was Eighth Grade and adulthood was when I watched Ladybird for the first time. It was until senior year I noticed this pattern, and discovered my passion for films. As I got older, I stopped to think about my passions and career goals. Why I had been so passionate and looked at films through both critical and loving lenses. Acting gives me a chance to express, but most importantly, tell different stories to the world. As an Asian American, first-generation and low-income student, the characters that looked like me, weren’t like me at all. I’m outspoken, passionate, and much more than just my Asian American heritage. Characters who look like me should have the equal chances to explore their character arcs, rather than being defined by their struggles. I want to pursue an acting career to help represent characters that I believe in, characters that are real. My story matters just as much as any other leading main character. As I discovered my love for both film and acting closer to college, I hope to join clubs and organizations to meet people that share the same passion as I do. I am choosing to minor in theatre and dance because it’s an integral part of who I am. Not only do I share a passion for acting, but my driving force continues to be for the inner little girl that was told “Do yous see us on screen? No, we stick to what we’re good at.”

I joined the distance team during my freshman year of high school and I didn't care if I was fast or slow, as long as I had an extracurricular on my college applications. Whether I made it to state or ran a 10-minute mile, I didn’t really care. Honestly, I had this mindset for a good year before I encountered my first, but not last trial on the track team. In my sophomore year, my teammate on the girls 4x4 baton relay dropped out due to a family emergency. When my coach asked me if I was interested in being the replacement, I was conflicted. Their goal was to get under five minutes, and the girls the whole year got better with each race the whole season. Not only did they want to make it under 5 minutes, but it was also going to be the final race of the year. Hesitantly, I agreed. When I came onto the starting line, I heard my coach yelling, “Scoot up River, this is all you! GO NOW!” And with that, I clutched the baton but the butterflies in my stomach didn’t stop. The only thing in my head was “Run, River run” over and over again. Around the halfway point of the 400 meters, I let out a hearty scream. In hindsight, that was probably the worst decision I’ve ever made in my running career, but I couldn’t control it. I felt so frustrated I wasn’t confident in myself, and I was so scared that as the replacement, I would ruin all of their hard work. I felt so frustrated that I wanted to run faster but my lungs were struggling to keep up with my legs. When I reached the finish line, I nearly collapsed. I fell on my knees and was desperately gasping for air like a fish on land. I didn’t even have enough willpower to get up to see my last teammate cross the finish line. Eventually, my teammates picked me up by my shoulders and I stared at the orange-blue sky above me with stars in my eyes. I thought to myself, “this was the worst thing I’ve done in my life”, but I couldn’t believe that I gave my everything in one minute and twenty seconds. When they announced we had beat not only the team record, but the school record by just a millisecond, I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and when we took pictures, I couldn’t stop crying. I look back on these photos now and cringe at my sweaty face with tears glistening on my cheeks, but I also feel proud. After this experience, I found a purpose in running. Running didn’t just teach me to get faster and work hard, instead, each race became physical proof of how much effort I put into it. Unlike a lot of other sports, running is one of the few sports that is heavily individualized. You’re running against other people, but you’re firstly running against yourself constantly. Not only did this apply to running, but I found it occurring in my daily life. Whether I was on the track or at school, my effort counted towards something and it showed in my times or grades. Life is an individualized journey, and it’s up to you to earn the results you want to see.

Endlessly by Omar Apollo has a catchy, funky beat underneath a distorted voice for the first 30 seconds. Apollo sings that “yourself to me baby, already got what I’ll ever need, I know deep in me is everything, what if I trust myself endlessly?” Endlessly might come off as a bittersweet lovesong as Omar complains to his lover that he wants to be touched and noticed and if his lover even loved him at all in the first place. He desperately wants to be noticed and loved, and even tells his lover that if they change their mind, Omar will still hold onto them tightly. However, it takes a turn towards the end of the song, when he no longer tries questioning this person’s love for him and makes a realization. He repeatedly says, “I know deep in me is everything, what if I trust myself endlessly?” Omar beautifully uses his song title in this meaningful and beautiful lyric about self-love. It’s a vulnerable thing to trust yourself, to trust that you will be happy and that you are truly the first person you should trust and love in this world. This song displays being vulnerable about things people don’t wanna talk about. They don’t wanna seem desperate or needy or accept that someone doesn’t want them. It gives a hopeful and powerful message at the end. Omar realizes that at the end of the day, everything is deep inside of him and questions if he’s ready to trust himself, more importantly, if he’s ready to let go of his unloving person to instead trust himself endlessly.

When I was younger, being Filipino-American felt like a barrier sometimes. It's something I knew I couldn’t control, but I didn’t want to control it either. When my parents immigrated from the Philippines in the 90s, they faced hardships crossing the street, at their workspace, and even from their own families. When they had children, they saw the melting pot of different cultures and always encouraged us to be proud of our heritage. I’ve loved being Filipino-American, I love my community, culture, and food. But when it came to leadership, I felt utterly lost during my three years in high school. In my senior year, I found myself in the highest position my senior year. I oversaw every single project/event on campus and had the opportunity to speak at school board meetings with the former governor, Jerry Brown. When adult military staff introduced their new commander for the school year, tears welled up in my eyes. I was overcome with anxiety and adrenaline hearing my Filipino last name through the speakers being announced. In my 6 years, I had never seen anyone my skin color, hair color, or 5'1 taking over the formation of a school of 700 students both in high school and middle school like I was. I went from being assigned the house maid in a game of house in elementary school, to being the highest-ranked student officer in my whole academy. I felt a sense of pride in my bones because I know that if I had someone who looked like me before, I wouldn’t have had such a difficult time. I also knew that if I quit my journey, someone out there who looked like me would’ve felt just as lost as I did. It’s my duty in this generation to push the needle just a little bit further at every opportunity I can get. My Filipino-American identity became my reason to do what I do in this life. Even now, I get so excited seeing Filipino-Americans succeed, I hope one day I can be a little Filipino-American's excitement. I am studying Design for User Interface and User Experience (UX/UI) to work in a tech company and pursue acting in the future. My identity felt like a burden in elementary school, but it now serves as a reminder that I matter, my story and identity matter whether I’m in a workspace or on the screen.

In second grade we took turns answering, “If someone could play you in a movie, who would it be?” I sat there not listening to anyone except my own thoughts while I panicked. As the only Asian student in the class, I saw all eyes looking at me when it was my turn. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember how I felt. I felt stupid and thought it was so unfair these students had so many different choices. As much as my teachers encouraged imagination and dreaming big, I felt like that advice excluded me. Years later at 18 years old, I gained the confidence to know that I have the ability to change that perception. I think back to that experience and I think it’s interesting how small questions and experiences can have such an impact years later. Because around the same time that happened, I told my parents I wanted to be an actress. I just saw the Disney Channel and I thought it would be fun. It was a harmless little comment from a six year old. My dad pointed at the Olympics on the TV and said, “Do you see any of us winning? No. We stick to what we’re good at.” I didn’t understand why he said that. What was I supposed to be good at? Being against acting was no longer the main issue, but it was finding out what Filipino Americans are supposed to be doing. All my six year old brain picked up was, “No arts. You don’t belong there. Find something else.” And that stuck with me for over a decade. I never even thought about pursuing acting until the lockdown in 2020. I spent hours watching movies and I spent my time after class memorizing monologues. I feel a spark in me when I memorize monologues or watch recordings of myself. There’s a spark to do better or a spark of joy celebrating my performance. When I pursue my other hobbies like running or coding, I don’t feel that special spark. It’s a very specific feeling that I intend to chase for forever. I want to do art to make a change, to be that someone I longed for on the screen when I was younger. This goal and career of mine is important to me because it’s what I love. There’s no greater feeling than watching yourself nail a monologue. When you’re born, there’s no set path on which you should be on. Everyone should be able to choose who should play them in a movie without hesitation or shame.