Bio

    When I was eleven, my mother passed away, and it felt as if my imagination had completely dissipated. Finding motivation to write or to be creative was taxing, and made it nearly impossible for me to express myself fully. My junior year of high school I made the spontaneous choice to join my school’s newspaper, a decision that I will never forget. I had joined with the intention of cruising by to get my credits, but had ended up rediscovering my passion for writing. While traditional news writing does not allow for a lot of room for creativity or self-expression, my high school newspaper was run by the students, for the students. We were allowed to discuss and write about a plethora of different topics, as long as they still pertained to school. This gave me the opportunity to do something with my writing I had never done before: use my voice. At the newspaper, our instructor gave us the freedom to choose what topics we wanted to write about. I had struggled at first to find my footing, but after writing my first initial stories, I felt comfortable enough to pursue my own topics. It was through this that I found an interest in writing about culture and entertainment. My time writing for the paper was an eye-opening experience that I am still grateful for. During my senior year of high school, I made the decision to pursue a major in journalism. This was a choice that confused a lot of people, many of them unaware of what journalism really entailed in our modern day. California State University, Northridge was the right fit for me and my major. Despite only getting to experience campus life at CSUN for one year, it cemented my decision to go to college and become a reporter. As I continued to navigate my professional career, I was worried that I would run out of stories to tell and that I would succumb to writer’s block. Learning about journalism through the lens of speaking for the people, completely changed my outlook on the profession. The stigma associated with reporters as invasive and rude, was something that even I had believed to be true. It was only once I put myself in the shoes of other journalists that I began to understand the opposite side to that notion. For me, many of the stories I write are about social issues that affect communities of color. Oftentimes, these stories and ideas are not discussed by mainstream media outlets and go forgotten. I realized that journalism, and my writing, can be used as a tool to help the collective and actively push towards change. I had initially started journalism to have my voice heard, and now I want to write so others’ voices can be heard.