If you know me at all, you know that learning is a top priority for me. I wholeheartedly believe that education should be a basic human right, but unfortunately, that’s just not the way the world works; as my mother has made abundantly clear to me, “education is a privilege, and should be treated as such.”

My grandmother never attended school in Vietnam because her family was unable to pay for it and my mother attended school in a low-income area of Louisiana where opportunities weren’t as bountiful as they are for me in my beloved Johnson County community. In other words, the importance of gaining a quality education has been drilled into me from a very young age, and I’ll always be grateful for that.

Realizing how lucky I am to receive a gift that my parents and grandparents were never able to obtain has always been my biggest motivator. My grandma’s inability to read or write weighed on my mind every year as I checked the box for advanced English on my course guide. It rung through my ears as I sat in classrooms learning how to read and write in Spanish for five years. It pushed me to become the editor-in-chief and write over 80 copies for this very publication. I’ll never stop striving to utilize all the sacrifices my grandma and mom have made for my siblings and me.

Their sacrifices were fruitful, as they’ve brought me the best education I could ever ask for. In addition to being forever grateful to my ever-supportive family, I want to say thank you to Mill Valley, the school that provided me with all of the privileges and support the generations before me could only dream of. I seized all the opportunities available to me as a Jaguar, and plan on utilizing every single one in my future; I sincerely hope you choose to do the same.