[Press Release] unpublished excerpt, Inglewood, CA, 2.06
On the afternoon of February 23rd, Maria Jimenez received a call to accompany her daughter Luz to school on Friday, but no one could tell her why. The surprise was bigger than either mother or daughter had imagined--out of 50,000 high school students across the nation to submit entries to Oprah Winfrey's National High School Essay Contest, Morningside High School's Luz Jimenez had been named one of the 50 winners.
The essay topic--"Why is Elie Wiesel's book Night relevant today?"--was no light matter; students had to delve deep to relate the Nobel laureate's Holocaust memoirs as a teenage boy to the present day.
For Luz, it was a meaningful task that brought tears to her eyes. "I loved the book," she said. "It made me wonder how it was possible that there were--and are--people with the state of mind to oppress and kill whole groups of people. Reading Night a second time around, I felt even more connected with the Jews," she added, having read the book the first time in her 10th grade World History class. "I really felt passionate about what I was writing, and I think that's why I won." In her essay, Luz made the connection between the hatred underlying the Holocaust genocide and the hatred that inspires gang violence in her own community.
In a way, the contest task was a perfect fit for the soft-spoken 12th-grader, who is known among friends and faculty not only for her dedication to her studies, but also for her independent streak and her penchant for questioning the status quo. In turn, Luz attributes much of her success to her equally fiery 11th-grade English teacher, Cedric Robbins. "Mr. Robbins made me the writer and the person I am today with literature," Luz said. "He lectured us like we were in a college class. He always pushed us and made us believe we were capable of achieving so much more. He told us, 'You came into this class thinking you are smart, and you are going to go out knowing that you are'--and that's what we did."
A college-bound student with her sights set either on Brown University or the University of California system, Luz has take Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) English classes throughout her high school career. In fact, it was her current AP Literature teacher, Maisha Haynes, and her 9th grade English teacher, Alexis Crump, who encouraged students to participate in the essay contest. "The self-initiative Luz displayed in submitting the essay is the same motivation I encountered as her 9th grade English teacher," Crump said proudly. "She clearly showed the world her fantastic leadership qualities."
This article never got finished because, as I was writing from a PR perspective designed to keep the school district in good standing with our partners, I called Oprah's people and asked for their blessing, which I did not receive. Since they "owned" the contest, they wanted to send out their own press release and did not want me to do anything additional on it. Harrumph!