My Life
This isn’t a policy page.
This is where I come from.
I’m not defined by titles or experience.
I'm shaped by the same realities many of you are living every day
Where I Started
I didn’t grow up with stability.
My family moved often because of eviction notices and rising housing costs. There were times when we had to worry about food, rent, and whether the lights would stay on. Because of that, I learned early what it means to live with uncertainty.
Even in that, I stayed active. I played soccer, skateboarded, and stayed involved in my community. Through church, my family and I would go out and help feed people experiencing homelessness. At the time, I didn’t fully understand how close we were to those same circumstances but I understood what it meant to give.
That stayed with me.
As I got older, I started to carry more of what I was going through internally. In school, I didn’t always take things seriously not because I didn’t care, but because I was trying to navigate instability at the same time. A lot of the time, I was just trying to get through the day.
What I Went Through
As I moved forward, I started to feel like I was constantly in survival mode.
I didn’t always face what I was going through. Instead, I avoided it. I distracted myself, stayed around the wrong environments, and tried to push everything aside. At the time, it felt easier than dealing with everything directly.
When my family moved to Oklahoma, things became even more difficult. I experienced isolation, racism, and a sense that no one really understood what I was going through. There were moments where I felt disconnected and unsure of where I belonged.
But even in those moments, I kept going.
What Changed
One day, I ended up in a robotics meeting.
I didn’t think I belonged there. I didn’t see myself as someone who was “smart enough” to build anything like that. But I stayed.
What started as something small turned into something bigger. I went home, studied, and taught myself things I never thought I could understand just so I could keep showing up.
For the first time, I wasn’t just trying to survive I was curious.
That curiosity turned into a passion for learning. It led me to physics, and it changed how I saw education entirely. I realized learning isn’t about being in the right place it’s about wanting to understand how things work.
That moment shifted everything for me.
Where I Am Now
When I came back to Washington, I carried both my struggles and that new sense of purpose with me.
I enrolled in college, even when it meant long commutes and continuing to push through challenges. Today, I attend Seattle Central College studying physics, and I rely on financial aid like FAFSA and the Washington College Grant to stay in school.
I’ve also had the opportunity to go to Olympia and advocate for students across Washington. That experience showed me something important:
The systems we rely on don’t always work the way they should but they can.
Why I’m Running
I’m not sharing this for sympathy. I’m sharing it because I know I’m not the only one.
There are students worrying about housing. Families trying to stay afloat. People working hard and still struggling to find stability.
I’ve lived that. And I’ve also seen what happens when people are given even a small chance to move forward.
That’s why I’m running.
Because if we build systems that actually support people through education, housing, and opportunity we don’t just help individuals.
We strengthen entire communities.