I'm just like any other teenager who wants to leave my hometown and live in a big city but don't get me wrong, Bakersfield is great if you're a farmer. Although farmers feed the world, that's just not for me, I want to pursue environmental engineering at Berkeley and be taught by Nobel Peace Prize winners who can be the mentors I longed for in my desolate town. I want to show my family that there is an entire world outside of Bakersfield and be a role model for my younger siblings, nieces, and nephews.

I've always been a leader, whether it was on the playground or in the classroom, I felt obligated to set an example for everyone and hope they would follow suit. It comes second nature to me as the oldest daughter in a Mexican household. I had to be the one getting good grades and following the rules and my dad communicated this frequently throughout my childhood. Although there was immense pressure, it had some benefits like always striving for academic excellence and building a strong work ethic. Managing a business is the most compatible career for my personality and I know I could showcase all my strengths in this position. Not only that but with the right marketing strategies and financial literacy, your own business would ensure you a steady career until retirement and to me steady means successful. Being raised with financial insecurities and unstable living situations has taught me two things. One, you have to work hard for anything you want in life. My dad raised my siblings and I as a single parent and nothing significant has ever been handed to him. He worked tirelessly to provide food and housing for his family while also fulfilling the roles of a homemaker. My father never told me I had to work hard, he showed me everyday by waking up at 4 a.m., going to work, and coming home after 12+ hour shifts to make dinner. Two, life can get tough but it will always get better. Everything changes, it is inevitable and sometimes it will be for the worst, but you can't ever stop fighting. At the darkest times, it can be so easy to become overwhelmed and give up but change starts with yourself. You must create the life you dreamed of having. Success is stability and happiness. In ten years, I wish to have a steady career that I can keep working my way up in and learn new things from. I want to be able to afford I home I can start a family in. Success means showing people like me, impoverished, brown, and queer, that it's possible to make your dreams come true. Most importantly, I want to be content. I wish to look back ten years from now and feel satisfied when all my hard work pays off. My community has been my motivation from childhood. It is easy to look at my neighborhood and feel pity, but when I look at my community I see opportunity. Everyone has the chance to become better versions of themselves but they aren't able to see the possibilities like I do. For example, Mrs. Hernandez at the liquor store down the street, who watched me grow up, has the most incredible voice I have ever heard. She can belt out mariachi songs without even warming up and I have always told her to take advantage of her talent but she insists that she could never do it and she doesn't want to risk losing her business on some "silly fantasy". Even though she dropped out of school at 12 years old to help raise her siblings, she knows the importance of education and has always reminded me to focus on my studies. I want to give back to my community because I understand the hardships and disparities that the older generations experienced that prevented them from accessing education and I want to show the younger generations that there's more to life than what is in Bakersfield. I am going to be the change that I wanted to see growing up.

My older brother was diagnosed with a blood disease last year. Life was normal until he started making frequent trips to the emergency room and doctors appointments. A month later he was bed-ridden at the hospital and regulations at the hospital due to Covid didn't allow my family and I to see him. We received updates through his wife and glitchy FaceTime calls. His wife and 2 daughters, my nieces, had moved in with us because their house felt empty without my brother. His wife came back home after visiting him in the hospital one day and as soon as she walked through the front door, she fell to her knees and sobbed violently into the floor. After almost 2 months of battling leukopenia, he died on a Thursday morning in the Summer of 2021. I could feel the grief in the gut of my stomach and the only relief was crying until I could no longer breathe. The thought of never seeing my brother again, hearing his laughter, or feeling his warm embrace made me never want to get out of bed. I have never experienced heartbreak before but I imagine it didn't even come close to what I felt. My brother had the warmest aura and he had the most loving hugs to prove it. My favorite memory of him is when he had his first daughter and when I held her for the first time, he started crying and he simply said, "I'm just so happy right now". It was only after the funeral service that I was finally able to properly process my brother's passing. I cried every single day, but I was never alone, and that helped me immensely throughout this time. My dad would hug me every chance he got because he knew how much I loved my brother's hugs and feeling that love eased my pain. My friends assured me that I could rely on them for emotional support and it gave me relief to know that I had supportive people in my life. My siblings and I made a pact to put more effort into hanging out with each other more after our brother's death. Even before, all of us were close but our brother's death made us realize that we needed to appreciate each other more often. In honor of our brother, we created Sibling Sunday's. Every Sunday we had to do at least one bonding activity and engage in meaningful conversations. Even though it's difficult to find time in our schedules to spend time together, we all compromise because we all recognize the importance of staying active in each others' lives. Going back to school that Fall was tough. Large classes and loud hallways overwhelmed me. It was hard to focus because I was constantly reminded of him, but nonetheless, I persisted and reminded myself of what my brother would want for me. Junior year was challenging but I was able to finish the year with a 4.5 GPA. At the one year anniversary of his death, I reflected on everything I had done in the past year and congratulated myself because despite losing my brother I was able to persevere and strive for academic success. This tragic event made me spiral into a dark depression but knowing that I was able to finish all my classes with straight A's, volunteer in my community, be involved with clubs on campus, be active in sports, and get a job within a year, gave me the confidence to challenge myself even more this year by getting into top universities.