Houston Law Firm Awards Scholarship To Northwestern University Student

Here at The Amaro Law Firm, the largest Hispanic-owned and award-winning personal injury law firm in Houston, we’re honored to serve our community by providing  representation for injured individuals and families in the Houston, Sugar Land, Clear Lake, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Corpus Christi areas as well as throughout the state of Texas.

Our mission has always been to focus on providing value through the quality of our work, winning at trial, attending to our clients’ needs, working as a team, and giving back to the community. In many ways, we believe college students are a vital part of our community, who can use a hand when it comes to paying for their education and bettering their lives.

For this reason, The Amaro Law Firm decided to invest in our community’s future by offering a $2,500 scholarship to the winner of our recent essay contest. We asked students to submit essays or videos based on our selected topic. We received many well-crafted and thoughtful essays, which made choosing just one winner a challenge. Ultimately, the winning essay impressed us with the author’s insight, humanity, and their plan for their future.

We’d like to present the winning essay of our 2020 scholarship contest, submitted by Northwestern University student Emilio.

Essay Prompt: The essay or video topic will discuss what success means to you and how you intend on embodying that definition throughout your life.

In fourth grade, I read my first Percy Jackson book. To my parents it was just a bunch of stories about a mythology invented by a culture that died out a long time ago. To me it was the start of a love affair with reading, writing, and being comfortable in my own head.

            Every day when I would get home from school, I’d immerse myself into the world of Percy Jackson. The living room was transformed from a carpet covered room, to the common area of Camp Half-Blood. My little brother went from a screaming hellhound to….well, a screaming hellhound. Those twenty minutes I had every day before my mom got home from work were amazing. For that small period of time, I was able to escape from reality. In those moments, I was special.

            From the moment I first felt that feeling, that feeling of being something more than just another person in a world filled with people; I decided that I always wanted to feel that way. Pretty soon, I graduated from reading Percy Jackson and fantasizing about it, to trying to write books like it. Seeing his thoughts written down on paper, made me want to do the same. The more I read about Percy’s adventures, the more I knew that I wanted to create something for someone that was for them what Percy was for me.

            Wielding my newfound love for writing the way Percy wielded his sword, I set out on a journey to become the next Rick Riordan. At nine years old, my only thought was how jealous all my friends would be when I published my first book. Now, after seven years of crumpling paper and restarting stories over and over again, my perspective has changed. I still love the world of writing, but somehow my love has deepened. I want to explore the intricacies of writing. I want to know why certain people have an affinity with words and why the only way to get the swirling thoughts in their head to calm down, it to write them down. Which is why, for me, success isn’t about how many books I sell or publish, but how many people I touch. And I plan on centering my entire career on my readers. I plan on making this a reality, by taking on the publishing industry.

            In today’s world, book deals are given to the authors that publishing companies know can sell lots of books. While that may increase the publisher’s profits, that leaves hundreds of thousands of authors sitting on the curb in the cold. This directly affects readers, because many of the authors that are kicked aside have unique stories to tell. Often times, mainstream media isn’t necessarily friendly with stories of the disenfranchised. Because publishing companies have turned to focus on profit and not material, readers are being deprived of life changing stories. In the status quo, success isn’t being determined by the message you send, but by how much money your message can make. After I graduate college, I want to start a revolution. I plan on moving to New York City to try and change the face of publishing. While I want to be a writer, I also want to be a book editor for a big five publishing company. Having a foot in both worlds, will allow me to bridge the divide. Additionally, by being inside of a publishing company, I’ll have a modicum of control over the types of books the company publishes. Meaning, that I’ll be able to give authors with messages a chance. Which to me, is just as important as touching readers with my own writing.

            My reasoning is simple. Even if my books are never on the shelves of Barnes and Noble, I will still be able to touch readers by allowing other writers to tell their stories. It’s my dream that people will be able to look at a bookshelf and see books that reflect who they are in their soul. If I can help that become a reality, then I will have achieved success. I will embody that by thinking of literature before myself. As an editor for the Northwestern newsletter, I hope to give everyone a voice while finding mine. As an author, I hope to write books that reflect everyone that reads them. I want to create worlds that brighten their day. By doing that and staying true to myself I will achieve success. Even if society doesn’t think so.

ABOUT EMILIO

Emilio Cabral is a freshman student at Northwestern University where he is double majoring in English literature and creative writing. His plans are to become a writer and change the perception publishers have of certain types of stories.

Watch Emilio speak about the scholarship, his goals, and what winning this means to him in the short video below.

Congratulations Emilio, we wish you the best in your studies. Keep up the great work!

Stay tuned for a follow-up blog post where we feature the best highlights from a selection of the many other great responses we received as part of our 2020 essay contest. Thank you to all who applied and keep up the good work!

Also, be sure to visit our Scholarship page soon for our next essay contest.