| If you’d like, share any extracurricular activities, professional details, or personal experiences you would like TSN partners to know about you. Responses can be as brief or long as you’d like. | William Lotz
11/21/23
Animation, writing, and interpersonal communication have always been a huge interest of mine. From the age of nine-years-old, I remember begging my mother to assign me extra reading and writing prompts on top of what course work I already had to keep up with in school at that time. I wasn't in any honors classes or a straight A student. I always tried my best with school up to this point, my biggest flaw in school was that I was known as a chatter-box. However, when I was nine-years-old, I had transferred out of my previous catholic school. My school only had one class for each grade, and each year my class had the same 20 or so students. There would be new kids each year, as well as at least one student leaving the school. Regardless, the general make-up of my community was the same and felt familiar. I never had to worry about if I had friends or not because there was a sense of camaraderie amongst my class. That all changed by the time I was entering the fourth grade.
I was new to my public school, P.S./I.S. 206, which is pretty much unknown to anyone, unless you've attended the school or taught at it. The demographic of students I was interacting with was completely different as well. At my catholic school, St.Edmund's, most of my peers were either of Haitian or Italian descent. There were two asian girls in my class, as well as one other student who had Puerto Rican descent like myself. Otherwise, there wasn't much diversity within the class. In P.S./I.S. 206, the student body was mainly made up of Russians, Pakistani, and Chinese descent students. There were also a lot more students who were immigrants and didn't speak English as their first language. This experience was eye-opening and made me realize all the diversity that was within just my small community of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. These two schools are only about half a mile away from each other. A three minute drive. An eight minute bus ride. An eleven minute walk. Yet the demographics I was facing within these two schools were completely different. I also noticed that in neither school did I find many other Puerto Rican, or students of at least Latin American descent. I don't speak Spanish or have the traditional Puerto Rican family portrayed in media. My family is very small and broken, so finding that there weren't many people like me around me, made me feel very isolated within my community.
I was comfortable with the community I had built with the students in St.Edmund's because we were all growing up together, and although I didn't find many peers similar to me, inclusion was a big theme that I felt my Catholic school pushed for within the classroom. Transitioning to the public school environment felt very uneasy for me. I wasn't used to the demographic of people around me, I still didn't feel represented within my peer group, and the students seemed to have moved on, or "aged out" of my interest. I was apparently too old to like Pokemon, the Muppets, Toy Story, and more. Feeling isolated and judged by my new set of classmates, I found most of my comfort at home in cartoons. Cartoon Network and Nicktoons never made me feel too old for enjoying their content. My love for animation never seemed to get much familial support either. Most of my cousins in my age group had moved on from cartoons to sitcoms, youtube content, dramas, and other media of the time. I was the outlier, who was still addicted to channel thirty two on Optimum. I was looked at as childish and as someone who needed to grow up, both at school and at home. This never made me stop having my love for animation, however it did cause me to mask it to the public.
One positive experience I can remember from transferring to P.S./I.S. 206 was the amount of importance being put onto literacy. Reading and writing were becoming more prominently needed classroom skills, that I don't feel got enough nurturing when I was in Catholic school. My public school experience is the first time I can recall having to read and write every single day. I wasn't too ecstatic about reading, but writing was something that made me feel hopeful about my new school experience. Surely a place that was teaching me such a vital valuable skill couldn't be all bad right? I was introduced to something I would call my foundation piece. My writing wasn't anything to jump for joy about, and I'm sure most other's foundation pieces aren't either. The quality of the work isn't what matters, but the significance behind it. The fact that I was introduced to a new medium of expression, and that was my first attempt at utilizing it, is what matters. I'm sure there's no longer any records of this writing, but if I had the power to go back in time and compare my foundation piece to the piece I've written at the end of that year, or the end of the next year, or the end of 2022, what would be recognized amongst all pieces of the writing is the voice is authentically mine. What I've always strived for within my writing since my foundation piece, is to translate myself into a page. Writing was great and I was grateful for it. I still felt the pressures of being accepted within my new environment though.
Not wanting to feel completely isolated and alone in my new environment, I started to build my interests towards things that seemed to be deemed "appropriate" by my peers. Ironically some animated content was involved in this category such as Yu-gi-oh and South Park. Why Yu-gi-oh was deemed age appropriate at nine when Pokemon was no longer, is a puzzle I've given up on solving. I embraced the new hobby whole-heartedly as it still felt pretty similar to Pokemon. They were both strategy games but Yu-gi-oh felt more like chess, and Pokemon like checkers. The theme of my fellow peers feeling like they were getting "too old" for the things, only continued as I went up in grade level. In addition, by sixth grade, the once big elementary school that had about 1,000 kids, was now narrowed down to a puny 300, split between sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Each grade got about 100 students per grade and was split into four classes per grade.
By the time this had happened, I started to feel more comfortable within my new setting. Most of my connections at this point didn't feel as genuine as the ones I was used to having in St.Edmund's. I wasn't hanging out with anybody outside of the classroom and for the most part, my common interests with my peers felt more like a result of peer pressure than bonds that were genuinely formed. It was hard for me to feel like I genuinely related to anyone around me and I was growing depressed, quiet, and pessimistic. An additional factor in my somberness was that my writing wasn't developing very well. It was hard for me to get higher than a C on most English assignments, no matter how hard I was trying. I had to get it explained to me over and over again that my writing was too vague, and each time I didn't understand it anymore than the last. I genuinely wasn't even literate enough at this point to know what the word vague was. By sixth grade, my vocabulary was only so big because I had a very rocky relationship with reading and really only had started to read in the fourth grade. Even still, during that time I was basically unwilling to read while at home, including for homework because the place that made me feel comfortable was cartoons.
I wasn't accepted anywhere else for my love of animation besides my own four walls. Any chance I got I made sure I was watching some form of animation so that my wild imagination and creativity could feel fostered somewhere. Animation has influenced me as a writer and a person, as it's always taught me to never stop dreaming. Even when I was ridiculed for my love of animation, I never let that ever make me feel like I hate animation. I admit that I was once ashamed to admit I liked certain cartoons, but I've learned that if people can't accept me for something as small as my interest, I have no interest in them.
Writing and animation are both beautiful art forms that from the earliest of times have told amazing stories. They've helped shape our society and have built better understanding and communication throughout the world. I want to be someone who further progresses this process. I want to be able to help kids like me. Kids who feel alone, unheard of, who have untold stories and let them know that they're seen. I see them. I want the next generation of students to be able to have passion about their interest and have no fear in sharing that. I want the student who feels alienated by his classmates and family to know that it's okay to continue to dream. It's okay to be happy regardless of others disapproval. It's okay to feel hurt from others' disapproval. It's okay to be a human being that doesn't feel seen or represented in their peer group. Everyone's the same, with stories to tell, interests, hobbies, pet peeves, and more. What's most important is that you know that all of these things are subjective and it's okay to have differences of opinion. I'm so thankful and grateful to those at Kingsborough who have seen my potential, who have fostered my ideas and growth, and have supported my ambitions. Being nominated for the TSN feels like a dream and I want to cherish this opportunity if I'm able to have it. I will forever remain grateful and humble for this experience, because if it wasn't for my friends, boyfriend, professors, advisors, and mother's support, I wouldn't be able to achieve the greatness that I have today. Without my mother, my chosen family, and my team, I genuinely don't feel I'd be as successful as I am today. I'm grateful for all the lessons they've taught me and motivation they've given me to believe in myself and produce my best work. Without animation, writing, and my interpersonal relationships, I'm not sure what path I would be on right now, but I'm sure it wouldn't feel as correct as this one. These forces have all fostered my dreams, thinking, creativity, success, and more. I'm hoping I'm able to share with the world how they've helped me and hopefully support others as well.
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