I’m honored to be one of the recipients of the 2020 Jimmy Gauntt award for the 2020 graduating class. Growing up 45 minutes away in Long Beach, I was awakened to the city’s unique creative energy while in high school. My friends formed bands, self-published zines, and were radicalized by the 2016 election cycle. A vibrant and self-contained arts community played out in backyards and living rooms, with infrequent, special drives up to LA proper. I was mostly interested in the beat poets and Henry Miller at the end of high school, and thankfully my education and friendships at USC broadened my literary horizons far beyond their grandiose hedonism, to Anne Carson and Maggie Nelson, John Ashberry and Denis Johnson, Christian leftists like Paulo Friere and Daniel Berrigan, neuroscientists (Antonio Damasio), physicians (Paul Tournier, Oliver Sacks), and psychoanalysts (Rollo May, Robert A. Johnson, Jung), all of whom I incorporated into my Narrative Studies capstone on intergenerational storytelling and values.
Beyond reading and writing, I met people during the past four years in south LA who are involved in a range of creative pursuits. My film school friends coordinated large numbers of people to create shorts, web series, and VR projects. I did production design and apprenticed art direction at first, and did several film scores on the back end of college with my synth, sampler and guitar. I concurrently recorded and released several music projects, and played saxophone in a group with Long Beach and LA friends. I began taking lots of photos and, for a while, painting and studying outsider artists in the US. My friend Mike Black and I spend the beginning of 2020 working on a collaborative book of photos, digital art, and poetry titled “History Pt. V”, which we’re going to print soon. While studying abroad in Europe, I traveled to southeast Asia and north Africa, and worked with Refugee Project Maastricht to hold community events and music/ESL lessons with the largely Syrian refugee population there. When I returned to LA, I began interning with the International Rescue Committee, where I now work full-time as their financial coach and coordinate a new CDFI lending service.
My years at USC have been life-affirming, though not without hardship and loss, including the death of one of my close friends and housemates. My current work allows me to be of service to my city and its inhabitants, to put down roots and learn the meaning of solidarity. Curiosity compels me to continue my education and, though I often fail, to translate thought to action and to learn from my experiences. Professors such as Brighde Mullins and connections through the Brain and Creativity Institute, including Rod Miranda and the good people at Sages and Seekers, taught me to never stop striving toward these ideals of actualized selfhood. On top of everything, I think LA is one of the greatest cities in the world and worthy of my commitment and gratitude.
