Seven old year me did not understand how sports work. At a young age, I have always been girly. I was my dad’s first daughter. An automatic disconnect, my dad so manly and loves the dodgers then me, a little girl with pink tutus and doll in my left hand. I never could understood baseball, no matter how many times he explained it me. What I could understand was the grand smile and how excited he got when the infamous baseball team was winner. I would see my dad jump and holler whenever they got a hit or two. To see my dad so excited and giddy gave me relief that he was a happy man. This disconnect between me and him was always apparent. Until one day, he bought me a pink dodgers hat with a bedazzled LA symbol. The bedazzled hat then became a daily item in my wardrobe right next to the tutus. All the photos from that day after I am wearing that pink hat. This small gift then inspired me to start taking interest in things my dad liked. My dad comprised so I learned about baseball. I loved baseball when it was something to talk to my dad about. A year later, we went to our first game together. I was so excited to know that we both had similar interests now. A small pink hat is what sparked our close knit relationship. Something he bought for me at a small shop in an instant brought us closer. I am now 19 years old and my dad is my best friend. We have kept a close relationship that has never been broken. A pink hat is what brought us together and kept us together. My dream job is to be a sports broadcaster one day. Sports is what brought my dad and I together. I want to be apart of that in the future. Sports is what brings people together and keeps them together in a community. I have been a fan for so many years and now I wanna be on the other side of the show. Cheering and being a fan for the dodgers is all I know. Thanks to my dad for that small symbol. He bought something that made me feel like I can relate to him, the pink sparkly hat. He started something in my heart and now I want to have him smiling because he sees me on the screen. I wanna introduce myself one day has my dream job.

I plan to give back to my community by being someone young latina women can look up on the TV screen. When I was a little girl, I would watch the news every single day before & after school. I felt so mature watching it with my parents and commenting on what was happening outside my World. But I would always see a group of certain type of people reporting about it. I would constantly worry about where my own people were. That phrase “my own people” being women with my own skin color, young and latinas, didn’t matter if they were old or young. In the daily news, the only time I would see people of my color would be by them committing a crime. How horrifying? The only program I would watch “adult” wise and look up go, not having the greatest influential versus of my color on it. It was belittling and exhausting. When I am a news broadcaster; I want to be someone who is higher educated and sophisticated. I can give young little latina girls the influence that we don’t have to be a certain stereotypical way to be on the TV. I’ve always struggled with stereotypes versus what my reality is. Stereotypes overlooking us and me has if I’m not capable of not achieving my goals. I wished to give the representation I needed at 7 years old, so young, so pure, that latina women can and will do it. I hope to be part of the new influence that people of my skin color can make, we can get a degree, we will be the new generations of Latinos that make the percentage of our race graduating college higher. I am tired of being overlooked has a women, has a person of color and has a person who doesn't get the same respect others do in a room. It’s exhausting. I wanna get this degree to prove that a young latina can do it and more importantly with courage and bravery. I pray that I can do that with this wonderful and blessed scholarship. Thank you!