Tonight, the Billie Jean King Library will showcase words of hope, identity and race from the perspective of high school students across the nation as part of an essay writing exhibition touring Southern California this summer.
Creative agency InterTrend Beyond 30 and its Make Noise Today initiative reached out to thousands of students and teachers to find out what high school students think about race, ethnicity and identity for its national writing contest, “Letters To…”
The result was over 900 essay submissions—heartfelt letters to a loved one, a peer, a bully, to one’s parents or one’s self, explaining feelings of identity and racial equity. The letters will be on display in the library all summer on large panels for residents to read.
The goal was to “provide a voice for the youth, especially with everything going on in the world right now,” said Tanya Raukko, chief strategy officer at InterTrend.
Raukko, who read each entry, said she was shocked at the strong level of writing from the contestants. Many entries focused on the need for mental health, she said.
“I think these kids are enduring a lot,” Raukko said. “That’s why I think mental health is a big theme coming out as a need that they have, but also, some of those challenges that they would speak of, it would transform a little bit into positivity and hope for the future and how they intend to change the world.”
Of the 10 essay winners, six will be present either in person or via Zoom to read their essays aloud at Thursday’s exhibition.
Residents will get a chance to ask themselves similar questions of identity at the event tonight, as they will be encouraged to write their own letters.
Long Beach is kicking off the summer-long series, which will travel to various Southern California museums, libraries and multicultural centers to amplify students’ voices on the matter of racial identity.
Under InterTrend’s Make Noise Today initiative, the agency has partnered with educators across the country to provide educational toolkits that “create a space for discussions of race” with an emphasis on storytelling, according to the initiative’s website.
The initiative was started in May of 2020, as a response to the increase in hate crimes against the Asian American community. According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 149% in 2020. The same center published a study stating that the number jumped to 339% last year.
Long Beach has an Asian population of over 54,000, making up almost 12% of the city’s population, according to Data USA.
The subject matter encourages self-reflection, and Raukko says the impressionable age is what makes high schoolers perfect for this kind of contest.
“We really wanted to think hard about where the deepest impact would be to combat racism. And we knew that [high school] was where people … their value system is formed at that stage and they’re still a little bit malleable and open-minded,” Raukko said.
The roughly 900 entries were narrowed down to the top 200 by an internal panel of Make Noise Today judges. An external panel of three people—an educator, an author and a journalist—then chose the top 10 winners, who received a total of $10,000 in winnings.
The exhibition will be held at the Billie Jean King Library tonight from 6 p.m to 8 p.m. The letters will be available to view throughout the summer during regular library hours.