Lucia

On my sixth birthday my father graced me with the gift of music by giving me my first CD player. He encouraged my natural passion for music and gave me a gift that would continue to impact my life. On Sunday cleaning days the stereo would turn up and my father would start dancing to Selena’s music with a mop in his hands. He loved his Cumbia records! You could tell by the way he lit up when the music played, the way he sang and swayed his hips to the music. 

Before my 8^th birthday my father was incarcerated and sentenced to more than a decade in prison. With my father in jail and my mother working 12 hours a day, I really had to resist the negativity in my environment and encourage myself to work hard and dream hard to stray away from becoming a stereotype.

My parents moved to New York from Mexico in hopes of giving their children a better future and they did not foresee the difficult circumstances that would arise. I am determined to keep their hopes alive by continuing to achieve my dreams, reaching newer heights and exceed standards. Throughout the hardest times in my life music and my academics have been my outlets to help me cope with my situation and stay optimistic about my future. During high school I had been blessed to sing with the Songs of Solomon Inspirational Ensemble. With the choir I have had the opportunity to sing with celebrities like Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Trey Songz, Earth Wind & Fire and many more at venues such as the Apollo theatre and Carnegie Hall. Songs of Solomon helped me discover how to use my talent while giving me a safe environment to express myself to people I consider to be like family. In school I joined clubs such as the school’s newspaper club to make myself busy and surround myself with people who believed in my ideas and me.

I am currently studying Music Education with a concentration in Voice at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education ad Human Development. In the past year I have had the pleasure of working as a teacher’s aid in a 3^rdgrade classroom. It has been such a rewarding and eye-opening experience. I learned how well I work with young students and grew my passion for education. The experience has solidified and encouraged my ambitions to become an educator. It is my sincerest belief that if a person understands their passion, they can feed this passion with knowledge, practice and encouragement and let it grow into a successful career path or idea. My passion for music and education motivate me to one-day start a non-profit organization that is devoted to helping young people from underserved areas to discover their passion through the arts and other extra curricular activities. My desire to travel and see the world may result in opening this organization outside of the United States.

Being accepted into the New York Needs You Fellowship has been another step towards my future success and also a step farther from the stereo-type others predicted I would become. I really hope that through this fellowship I will gain the knowledge and tools to create a successful large non-profit organization for the arts.