Accomplished Young Writer a Quick Study

Ana Urzua credits her teachers and Sesame Street, but mostly her mother.

The seventh-grader from Garden Grove’s Walton Intermediate School is one of 12 students nationwide to win a Fulbright award for her play on diversity and tolerance.

And she is the only winner for whom English was her second language.

Ana began writing stories about the same time she started learning English--in the first grade after her family immigrated from Colima, Mexico.

Learning a new language was difficult, she said, but she did so within two years--with help that she well remembers.

She recalls how her mother, Ana Maria, would write words in a notebook in both English and Spanish for Ana to study as a toddler. She said she would trace the straight lines and curves of those letters with a pencil.

“I don’t think I could have possibly started to write without being able to read and recognize letters,” she said. “There are some parents out there that don’t really do those things. They think that’s what school is for. But that little extra help can really make a difference.”

B.J. Adler, executive director of the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, an organization that administers the Fulbright Young Essayist Award, said the judges were not aware of Ana’s late start in English.

“I think we probably falsely assumed that winning this award is a huge accomplishment for those proficient in English,” she said. “Ana’s accomplishment is a vivid demonstration of the changing demographics of this country.”

The feat is not lost on Ana.

“I think that’s pretty impressive,” the shy but self-assured 12-year-old said. “I think it’s already hard enough to win a contest like that if English is your first language. But to win it with English as your second language, I guess that’s really hard.”

Ana’s winning play started out as an assignment for her advanced language arts class.

Her language arts teacher, Marilyn Monahan, had hoped for this outcome. “Ana really took the assignment to the fullest level,” she said.

The Fulbright panel of judges--made up of teachers, international reporters, editors and writers--read more than 2,000 entries, and they agreed.

Ana’s task was to write about breaking down racial and cultural barriers among people through the simple act of sharing a meal. Award organizers based the theme on a Washington, D.C., woman who organizes and hosts what she calls a Peace Table, which brings people together who normally wouldn’t meet.

Ana started writing her piece in her head on her way home from school the day it was assigned. While most students submitted written essays on the topic, Ana chose a more dramatic format.

“I imagined the voices and how it would be,” she said. “I could see it and imagine it. I thought it would be nice for me to write it as a script so that people could see what I was thinking.”

Ana’s willingness to take a risk in writing a script rather than an essay was the clincher, Adler said.

‘She’s Fascinated With the Language’

“It was a brilliant idea,” she said. “She wrote the play with such sophistication and poise, . . . and she really communicated the concept of a Peace Table to children at her own level rather than just trying to impress a bunch of adults.”

The three-act play centers on two friends who plan and successfully host their own Peace Table. In one scene, the two describe the potential invitation list to a skeptical student:

Roxanne: These are the people we are thinking of inviting. Jackie Battle, you know, the black woman we delivered the canned food to on Thanksgiving, is one of them. Her welfare got cut off, and she’s been having trouble supporting herself and her kids. Her rival, Richard Moray, the white dude that cut off her welfare and now has lost his job, is another one. Crystal says that she’s seen their kids have arguments just because their parents argue.

The characters speak words written from Ana’s heart--about being different from others.

“I used to cry every day,” she recalled of her first months in the United States. “I felt scared.”

But soon, Ana had mastered the language enough to move from a bilingual to an all-English classroom.

Monahan said Ana’s natural curiosity has given her a special way with words.

“She likes to ask a lot of questions,” Monahan said. “She’s fascinated with the language, always wondering about idioms, punctuation and grammar.”

For winning the Fulbright award, Ana, her mother and her teacher were flown to Washington, D.C., for a whirlwind week of celebrations and sightseeing.

Ana plans on becoming a doctor and hopes to continue to write stories “on the side.”

“This whole experience has given me a feeling of confidence in myself,” she said. “It has taught me that anything can happen, no matter what race you are or if you are male or female. . . . “I really put my heart into this. I never thought I had a chance to win something this great.”

The Fulbright Educational Exchange Program was created in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges.

The award Ana received was created in 1996 to promote cross-cultural awareness among students and to honor the country’s top young writers. The contest is open to all junior and high school students throughout the U.S. and its territories and in U.S.-sponsored schools abroad.

For information or to get an application for next year’s award, visit https://www.usia.gov/education. The entry deadline is Jan. 10.