Here Are the 2014 Writing Contest Winners
As we have said before, the many excellent entries submitted by children of our Union’s members makes judging the writing contest a very difficult task. The final decisions were reached at the end of the summer and we are proud to tell you about this year’s winners.
NARRATIVE
In the narrative category Johnny Wu received an honorable mention for his first person account about choosing his future career. Mixed in with this inside look on how a young adult thinks about dream jobs is a commentary on Jeremy Lin and the Linsanity craze of two years ago. You see, besides viewing engineering and cooking as dream jobs Johnny also thinks about playing basketball and the challenge it presents to him because he is smaller and not as fast as most players. In the end it was a very interesting and very smart account about choosing a career, which is one of the most difficult choices anyone has to make. With this award, Johnny joins just two other writing contest winners in the previous years of the competition in having won prizes in all three years they were eligible to compete. Congratulations!
Tabassum Alam won an award last year for her untitled non-fictional piece about a program she belongs to called Teens for Racial and Ethnic Awakening. Like that narrative, the piece submitted by Tabassum this year is about emotional growth. In this case it is Tabassum’s participation as stage manager and stand-in in her high school’s production of a work inspired by the great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Her narrative explains that this experience found her opening up to others and bringing down the wall she had built around herself, and it also had her interacting with classmates in a way that never happened before. Tabassum’s narrative also shows that her talents apply not only to the stage but to writing as well. We salute her on her honorable mention award in the 2014 writing competition and note that she has a chance to become a three-time winner next year.
In a greatly moving narrative Gabrielle Morales told a very compelling story and explained how the experience helped determine her future career. When Gabrielle was nine-years-old her newborn sister, Isabella, was diagnosed with a very rare form of leukemia that required a bone marrow transplant. Gabrielle’s narrative tells us how stressful the time was for her and her entire family, and how she was assisted in dealing with it by a woman named Annie, who was employed as a child life specialist in the children’s hospital where Isabella was being treated. What is a child life specialist? As Gabrielle explained, it is a specialist who assists young patients and their siblings through tragic struggles. We regret to say that Isabella passed away at the age of 18 months. But Gabrielle’s narrative explained that as sad and difficult as Isabella’s passing was, there was something positive to be taken from the experience. Gabrielle plans to become a child life specialist herself, and her narrative leads us to believe she will truly excel in that role. Her touching account won third place in the narrative category.
In “Colors,” a non-fiction narrative, Tanvir Islam, a 2014 Vito J. Pitta scholarship winner, explained how it is OK to stay between the lines in a coloring book as well as in life itself. He explained how those lines are not really restricting, telling us how his parents’ guidelines gave him something truly invaluable—the belief that hard work is the essence of success. Tanvir won a prize in last year’s competition for his report on a modern day hero. This year, he won second place in the narrative category for telling us about witnessing his parents’ struggle in a country that he says they did not fully understand and yet finding that their guidelines led him to do well in school and put him on the road to achieving a lifelong ambition: becoming a pediatric surgeon.
Denis Weng wrote one of last year’s most interesting narratives, a fictional account of an auto accident victim, who gradually comes to realize the crash has left him blind. This year, Denis returns as a first place prize-winner in the narrative category with “My Block” a non-fiction look back at an area of his neighborhood where as a child he waited for a school bus every day. The look back showed Denis that he had a very vivid imagination as a kid. And the narrative reveals that his vivid imagination has progressed into great creativity and talent as a young adult!
ESSAY
The essay category was the toughest to judge this year. It had the most entries and the vast majority of them were very well thought out and very well written. The most common theme selected out of the six topics the students could choose from was Public Safety vs. the Second Amendment. Labiba Chowdhury won an honorable mention for her essay on this very topic. A cogent, well reasoned and extremely well-researched piece, Labiba’s essay should be mandatory reading for both gun safety advocates and NRA members.
Tenzin Wangyal also won an honorable mention in the essay category, also for a piece on the Second Amendment vs. Public Safety. Tenzin’s essay took a middle of the road position, suggesting a compromise on this hot button issue: not banning firearms altogether but putting in much stronger regulations. He noted that the U.S. has more per capita homicides than any of the other 33 developed nations. He also noted that Australia passed legislation in 1996 regulating guns after a horrific massacre of 35 people in Tasmania and hasn’t had a mass murder since then. The proposed compromise offered by Tenzin in this essay was a common sense solution to the problem of too many guns and too many killings in the U.S.
A terrific essay on A Modern Day Hero was submitted by Phillip Vendola. In this essay Phillip explained that the definition of “hero” is often misunderstood, and that the holder of this title can come from the most humble of backgrounds. The modern day hero Phillip wrote about is Aitazaz Bangash, a 14-year-old Pakistani student who sacrificed his own life while preventing a suicide bomber from entering his school of 2,000 other students on January 6, 2014. For this essay about unparalleled courage, Phillip won an honorable mention. In fact, one judge called it a “very honorable mention” for reporting on Aitazaz Bangash, a heroic young man that few of us had heard about until we read Phillip’s essay.
Jason Galitsis won third place in last year’s essay category and he does so again this year. Last year he wrote about a real modern day hero, Dick Holt, and this year he switched gears by telling us who his choice is to be the next President of the U.S. Jason chose Hillary Clinton in a polished and intelligent presentation that is reminiscent of Mrs. Clinton herself. Like last year’s submission to the competition, this year’s entry by Jason was impressive and convincing. Jason, too, has a chance to make history next year, when he is a senior, by joining Johnny Wu and the two other three-time winners in the writing contest. We wish him luck with that effort.
Jeffrey He chose a modern day hero as the topic of his essay. The hero he chose was Edward Snowden. Interestingly, eight students chose a modern day hero as the theme of their essay and half of them chose Edward Snowden. Jeffrey’s essay explained how the Snowden leaks showed complicity between corporations and the NSA in dealing with private information, and he showed how other revelations by Snowden proved that intelligence officials lied repeatedly in testimony before the U.S. Senate. Jeffrey’s essay says, “Snowden has done a great service to both Americans and the rest of the world.” Regardless of what the reader of Jeffrey’s essay thinks of Snowden’s actions personally, however, the work’s final premise makes anyone and everyone think hard. Jeffrey wrote that Snowden “Has made us reconsider the value of our privacy and become more informed voters.” It’s hard to argue with that, and this essay won second place in the essay category.
First place in the essay category was awarded to Denis Weng for his essay entitled “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 74 more times, shame on the Second Amendment.” The 74 more times refers to the number of different school shootings that occurred in the U.S. in between the time of Sandy Hook and the moment Denis wrote his essay. That’s right, there have been more than 74 school shootings in the U.S. since Sandy Hook, and that’s why Denis’ essay should be read on the floor of the U.S. Congress. He tackled the issue of Public Safety vs. the Second Amendment with a ferocity that would make great debaters of the past proud. He pointed out that the language of the Second Amendment is so ambiguous some would easily interpret it literally to mean that it grants the right to every American to own intercontinental nuclear missiles. He highlights the amendment’s dubious language by noting that here in America it is illegal for a 20-year-old to sip a beer but a five-year-old is permitted to have a gun. To be frank, the Second Amendment has no chance against Denis’s arguments, and the strength of his writing won him first place in the essay category. Along with his first place prize in the narrative category this makes Denis the first student in the history of the writing contest to grab two first place awards in the same year. And like Jason Galitsis and Tabassum Alam he has a chance next year to join Johnny Wu and two others as winners of awards in all three years they compete.
POETRY
In the poetry category the work entitled “Clean Sheets” by Victorya Kaon won third place. It is the dream of a homeless person who longs for the home and the bed and the clean sheets he once had. Victorya’s poem has a main character who once had a good life but fell on hard times when he lost his job. It makes all of us appreciate that times are still tough for many, and that we all have to recognize that homelessness is not necessarily the fault of the homeless.
“This Life,” by Dominique Dorvil, was awarded second place in the poetry category. A pensive, poignant poem, “This Life” has an amazing lesson to teach its readers. Who says poverty is always a curse? The poem explains that poverty sees value in the simplest of things and points out some very successful and well-known people who grew up poor. This encouraging look at an age-old problem really impressed the judges, winning Dominique her second place prize.
The first place prize in the poetry category was awarded to Mahzabin Hasnath for her untitled work that has identity as a theme. To understand how well her poem tackles the topic of identity, one only has to hear the first line: “My name wrestles with the Western tongue.” From there it gets even better, as she traces her progress with identity from age 7 through age 13, all the way to age 17, growing from embarrassment about her name to pride in her Bengali heritage. It is a great, uplifting and instructional journey somehow captured perfectly inside the brevity of a one-page poem. In writing this work, Mahzabin has made writing contest history. That’s because her piece not only won first place in the poetry category, but for the first time in the history of the writing contest a poem—this poem—was judged the best overall entry in the competition, winning for Mahzabin the grand prize of $3,000.
Johnny Wu, seen here with his mom and Donald Rubin, in 2014 became one of only three students to win awards in the writing contest in all three years of eligibility.
Tabassum Alam, who won an award in the Narrative category, with family members and Donald Rubin.
Tanvir Islam, a writing contest winner in both 2013 and 2014, and his father are congratulated by Evelyn Jones Rich, the Foundation’s former Executive Director
Denis Weng, seen here with his mom, made history in the 2014 writing competition by winning first place in two different categories.
Tenzin Wangyal and his parents. Tenzin won a prize in the 2014 essay category.
Jason Galitsis, seen with his father, has won awards in both the 2013 and 2014 writing contests, and is eligible for entry next year, when he is a high school senior.
Jeffrey He and his parents are congratulated by Alex Gardener, the Executive Director of the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation.
Mahzabin Hasnath, seen here with her father, won best overall entry in the 2014 writing contest and the top prize of $3,000 that goes along with it.
