WARREN TWP. - “Today I lived the ideal day,” begins Julia deMontagnac’s prize-winning essay on the atmosphere of inclusion she hopes to see at Watchung Hills Regional High School.
A sophomore at the high school, deMontagnac earned the top prize in the Warren Township Lions Club’s inaugural diversity and inclusion essay contest. Some 32 Watchung Hills freshmen and sophomores submitted essays, responding to a prompt asking them to envision a diverse high school and what diversity means to them.
For deMontagnac, 16, of Warren, this ideal would mean surviving the day “undamaged and unscathed.”
“I was not poked or prodded,” she imagines. “I was not seen as ‘exotic.’ My hair was not a toy for strange hands to play with. Teachers did not scrutinize me during lessons on abolition. I was not bombarded with questions about my family lineage, and I did not receive the backhanded compliment that I was pretty for someone of my race.
“Today I lived an entire school day without the scrutiny that came with being different.”
Readers can find deMontagnac’s full essay, which she read aloud at a Lions Club meeting on Wednesday, June 9, here: https://tinyurl.com/4rw68bpa.
In a phone interview the day after the Lions meeting, the writer said she revised and added to the essay several times. The writing exercise, she said, forced her to sit down and think about her feelings and experiences, “and really have a deeper understanding of what I’ve always believed.”
“Writing the essay was a nice experience to have because it was the first time that I really put these feelings onto paper,” she said.
“I try to embody in my essay what other people have expressed to me as their opinions on what it felt like to be seen as different, as well as my own opinion, so I really hope that my essay could embody a universal experience. It was just a good experience trying to speak what I believe and what I know other people feel and believe.”
Being different, she writes, does not render her powerless, however. She writes she and others have the power to affect change at the high school, and that diversity “must run deeper than a brief lesson plan and the occasional talk about inclusion.”
Diversity must be discussed in history classes, she writes, and English classes must teach literature exposing students to people of all different walks of life, from ethnicity to economic status to gender identity. Diversity, she writes, “should be so engrained in our schooling that it would be impossible to point it out.”
“When we make diversity an equivalent aspect of education, tomorrow no longer has to be the day when any student is poked, prodded, touched, scrutinized, and questioned,” the essay concludes. “Tomorrow can simply be the ideal day where we can unapologetically be ourselves.”
While one can sympathize with another’s experience, deMontagnac said in the interview, it can be difficult to truly understand what a peer is going through unless they are living it themselves. Education is therefore paramount, she says, to creating a deeper understanding among students of different backgrounds.
“The more educated you are, the more you know about and understand other people, and the more inclusive you can be.”
Inaugural Contest
DeMontagnac was one of several students honored at the Lions meeting on June 9. She, like a number of scholarship and club award winners, attended the ceremony virtually, reading her essay aloud over Zoom.
In this first year of hosting the diversity and inclusion essay contest, Lion Bill Bartnick said the club members who judged the essays were “blown away” by some of the submissions. The number of essays submitted also surpassed expectations, he said.
Bartnick serves on the club's diversity and inclusion committee, which was launched last year. Lion Vincent Olivia, who also serves on the committee, commended deMontagnac for her words.
“Julia, nobody could say it better,” he said. “That was a fantastic essay and you have really captured the spirit of what we were trying to achieve and be part of. Congratulations - that was well, well, well done.”
Placing second in the contest was Ava Maloney, followed by honorable mention winners Lara Martin, Mattingly Weisholtz and Amber Hwang.
The top prize was a $250 gift card from TD Bank. Second place earned a $150 gift card and the honorable mentions each won $100 gift cards.
Denise Pirozzi, another member of the diversity and inclusion committee, offered praise for all the participants in an email.
"The 32 entries all had some similar themes come up, and not only did they help to inform and inspire our committee, but the students have also taken the momentum brought on by the last year to visualize and try to work for a more inclusive environment for all in our community," she said.
DeMontagnac thanked the club in the interview the next day, saying it was “so special” for her words to be recognized.
“When I started writing the essay I wrote it because I wanted to put how I felt on paper, and I wasn't thinking I was going to write this to win the award. But when I did win and I heard that it resonated with a lot more people than I thought it would, it just felt really special.
“It really goes to show that so many people can relate to how you feel and what you're thinking, and you just have to speak up and say it.”
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