I was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. When I was ten years old, I moved to the United States to seek the future, financial stability, and education my parents did not have the opportunity to obtain. I started reading books, and literature allowed me to gain fluency in English and improve my writing, allowing me to succeed in my classes. My passion for reading literature created this deep curiosity to learn about the human experience. Furthermore, literature allowed me to be more empathetic and truly understand how powerful it is to connect with community and support one another. This led to my passion for psychology and mental health, which helped me feel motivated to pursue a career as a therapist and work with children and families. In my hometown, low-income and immigrant families do not possess adequate resources due to the unequal system that erases their struggles. As I was raised witnessing neighbors functioning in survival mode and opting to work in terrible conditions, I decided that I wanted to make a positive impact on children’s lives. I am attending college so I can uplift immigrant populations who do not have a voice to retaliate against the unjust system that placed them in impoverished circumstances. This inspired me to choose a career in which I can provide affordable mental health resources to children and families that come from queer, immigrant, low-income, and underrepresented communities. With my BA in Psychology, I want to provide culturally competent interventions to low-income immigrant schools that address collective struggle and generational trauma. I am currently volunteering with Reading Partners Seattle so I can provide one-on-one tutoring in literacy areas to students who are in underrepresented communities and behind in grade-level reading. As an immigrant student, I struggled to learn how to read in another language that was not my native language, and through appropriate educational support, I was able to gain fluency in English. Volunteering with Reading Partners gives me the opportunity to get training in social emotional learning, and use that curriculum to teach children effective methods to express their emotions and ask adults how to meet their needs. Therefore, my experiences inspired me to start my career with children as an English tutor because I want to understand the most equitable ways to support them emotionally and academically. I also want to have the opportunity to make a direct impact on their education and effectively prepare them for the future. I believe that I deserve this scholarship because my experiences as a queer immigrant will allow me to make the University of Washington a more diverse and inclusive place for queer Latinx students. In addition, I want to use this scholarship to advocate for underrepresented communities and marginalized youth so they can have opportunities I did not have access to and help support them so their needs are met. I strongly believe that community care is mental health and having immigrant and queer representation in mental health places is essential for me. I want to provide representation and support to underrepresented youth so they can have the power and resources to succeed in society. With the assistance of this scholarship, I will be able to obtain my bachelor’s degree and continue with my graduate education so I can achieve my career goal of creating a holistic mental health practice for marginalized communities.

I was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México. When I was ten years old, I moved to the United States to seek the future my parents did not have the opportunity to achieve. At school, I constantly felt like an outsider because my classmates would take advantage of me since I did not possess the resources to defend myself. I realized that language barriers existed between me and everyone else who perceived me. It felt discouraging to not be able to express myself and hold conversations with other people. I wanted to have the same opportunities as my classmates and to do that I had to be fluent in English. I committed to reading books, and although at the beginning I needed to use google translate, literature allowed me to truly comprehend English. Furthermore, this allowed me to understand how to use grammar and sentence structure to articulate my thoughts into cohesive writing and succeed in school. By engaging in literature, I was able to gain fluency in English and improve my writing skills. I took the responsibility on myself to care for them and translate everything for them so they would not have to struggle the same way I did with English. I was passionate about being fluent in English and communicating with my community that I did not give up even if it was a difficult challenge. This allowed me to provide support to my parents whenever they needed help. This was a big milestone because it was important for me to prevent them from ever experiencing what I went through in school and eliminate any language barriers for them. This challenging experience taught me a lot about being perseverant, as well as overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers to make a better future. Thus, I learned to always work hard and stay determined despite setbacks along the way. I learned to not let any language barrier deter me from getting the same opportunities as everyone else. I envisioned a future for myself where I would continue to graduate school and make the life my parents moved to the United States for. I found a passion for reading and writing, something I thoroughly enjoy and that contributes to my life significantly. Being bilingual is something I am very proud of because I can represent and be a voice for my people and my culture. I’m very proud of everything I accomplished since I was a student in fifth grade, and now I’m able to continue with my education despite the fact that I had to learn a whole new language. With my BA in Psychology, I want to provide culturally competent interventions to low-income immigrant schools that address collective struggle and generational trauma. I am currently volunteering with Reading Partners Seattle so I can provide one-on-one tutoring in literacy areas to students who are in underrepresented communities and behind in grade-level reading. As an immigrant student, I struggled to learn how to read in another language that was not my native language, and through appropriate educational support, I was able to gain fluency in English. Volunteering with Reading Partners gives me the opportunity to get training in social emotional learning, and use that curriculum to teach children effective methods to express their emotions and ask adults how to meet their needs. Therefore, my experiences inspired me to start my career with children as an English tutor because I want to understand the most equitable ways to support them emotionally and academically.