Who are you? It is one of the mysteries of yourself that only you can truly answer. It was also the concept of the prompt for the Hispanic Heritage Month essay contestants.
Leading up to the awards ceremony, a video called “The Tinaja Trail” was shown to the audience. The movie talked about the dangers that undocumented Hispanic immigrants face when crossing the border, and how high the mortality rate for these individuals are. It then follows a group of ordinary citizens who develop a system of helping these people survive once they cross the border by setting out water caches in areas good for resting and creating an app that allows these caches to be located.
After the video, the awards ceremony began. Fifty-four essays were judged by a panel of judges for their answers to a series of questions about identity, both cultural and personal. A quote from Junot Diaz, a Dominican American writer, was also included for reflection. Of the fifty-four essays, three winners had to be chosen along with three honorable mentions. On October 11th, the winners were announced.
The three winners were Elijah Ruiz in first place with his essay “Mirrors, Monsters, and Identity,” Amanda Jiang in second place with “On Acceptance and the Unfolding of Identities,” and Marisol Lay in third place with “Morena American.” The three honorable mentions included Matthew Barge with his essay “My Own Mirrors,” Cristina Chaidez with “To Clutch an Identity,” and Faith O’Leary with “Making a Monster.”
Ruiz drew from his school experiences with teachers, friends, and systems. He also based his essay on how he felt while growing up with no Hispanic leaders to look up to, and how he turned to historical figures and poets to relate to his situations.
“Being surrounded by television and social media from a young age, I felt isolated because I couldn’t see myself in anything depicted in those networks, which made me feel like I couldn’t relate to myself because of it. I grasped onto historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortez, but after learning more about them I became disenchanted with them and turned to poets like Willie Perdomo and Lemon Anderson. I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to express myself with this essay,” said Ruiz.
Jiang, a Chinese-American student, began her essay narrating her grandfather’s time growing up during the Chinese cultural revolution to signify the idea of identity. She then switched to a first person perspective about her own life, and added reflection on her grandfather’s past.
“My grandfather saw himself in books that contained concepts of freedom and liberty. During the Chinese cultural revolution, the books that he related to were burned, and as a result he lost his sense of identity. After he told me this, it pushed me to search for my identity and who I am. This prompt deals with monsters, and identity, which are two concepts that I love. I love looking at inner demons as things that can either become you or control you, and I love the concept of knowing yourself. I feel like knowing yourself is one of the most important things that we can do in our lives, and I think that transforming my grandfather’s pain into words was what liberated my mind,” said Jiang.
Lastly, Lay based her essay on the struggles of being racially African American and ethnically Hispanic. She draws from society’s expectations of her to conform to certain stereotypes because of her appearance and her mixed heritage.
“Throughout my life, people wouldn’t listen to me because of the way I looked and how I didn’t fit their stereotypes of what a person like me should be like. In my essay, I drew from that pain and incorporated it into my writing. Also, the elements in Junot Diaz’s quote helped bring about a very detailed and personal style to my writing,” said Lay.
In the days leading up to the event, a panel of 4 judges, Professors Michael Petersen and Phil Virgen, and students Miguel Orozco and Allen Loomis, had to spend a total of 2 hours reading over all of the submissions. They looked for concrete answers to the three questions in the prompt and at the basic structure of each essay.
“The winning essays were written amazingly and I felt like I could relate to each one.
The winners of the contest answered and developed the question, while relating it to themselves in an engaging and fun-to-read way. Also, there was originally only going to be two honorable mentions, but after picking one there were two equally good submissions so we opted to include three,” said Orozco.
Finding one’s own identity is something that takes time and effort. For the essay contestants, they already started down this road of discovery, and have found the first piece to their puzzles.