I live in an Indian reservation near the edge of the Los Angeles county basin. I am raised by my single mom in a public high school here in our humble Indian reservation. But I grow up in the MTV generation of the new millennium and so we the Native American youth are just like our mainstream Caucasian, African-American and Hispanic brethren – we also dig in to such alternative bands as Buckcherry and hip-hop duos like the Ying Yang Twins.

I admit though that there is still an economic divide between our group and what we dub as the “mainstream” Americans. It all change when President Bush signed into law the economic stimulus package of January 2008 increasing the ceiling of college student loans. It has long been my dream to become a Hollywood director someday and with this new policy of the United States government, I hope I can finance myself through college at UCLA Department of Theater, Film and Television. I want to be a successful Gabriellino Indian.

Now on my senior year in high school with spring break approaching, I have already started inquiring on how to apply for student loans. I will be applying both for federal and Fannie Mae student loans (Sallie Mae being a former federal enterprise). Of course, prior to that, I have already passed the initial entrance exams at UCLA including the prerequisite college application essay.

There are two reasons why my interest in pursuing a filmmaking career piqued – first is the proximity of our Gabriellino Indian reservation to the world’s entertainment capital and second was when I saw the movie Apocalypto. Although the movie Apocalypto doesn’t depict the Gabriellino Indians but the Mayas in Mexico, I can see a resemblance somehow in our community. And then I’ve heard that Roland Emmerich will be making the movie about North American Indians in 10,000 B.C. I can already feel that I can be the next Rudy Youngblood in Hollywood but behind the camera and not in front of it.

My interest in cinema has peaked when every weekend, my friend and I would go to LA and hang out and watch movies there. The last movie that I saw was Cloverfield. Cloverfield is just like The Blair Witch Project only on a big-budgeted scale. Another thing that struck me in the movie was its very realistic depiction of a house party and what goes on inside your head when you’re drunk. That is J.J. Abrams at his best. And I want to be like him someday by financing my film studies with student loans.