Meet Our Scholars
Em Beltran
Saddleback Community College
Music
She/Her/Hers
Community College
Bryan A. Fitzgerald Scholarship
Em Beltran spent most of her life in Oceanside, California. She was raised part of her life by a single lesbian mother until 2017, when she gained another mother who loved her. Em went to an elementary school for performing arts, where she first got a taste of different art forms. For the first two and a half years of high school, she believed her calling was writing. She spent most of her time figuring out how to become a writer, writing on any piece of paper she could find. At one point, she experienced a harsh mental rough patch that left her with permanent writer’s block. Luckily, she found another creative outlet through dance, in which she participated during her junior and senior years. While she expresses herself in many ways, her constant comfort art form is music. After graduating high school in 2020, she made a sudden but deliberate change and enrolled in Saddleback College as a music major. She also started to come out as pansexual to those she trusted. She plans to transfer to a four-year university, majoring in music technology. The music she plans to create will reflect her adversities along with her triumphs.