Natalie Yang

Newark Charter School

Nomination Statement

“Natalie is a student council president (and tennis captain) who also works at Joy Garden, her parents’ restaurant, for over 30 hours per week. Natalie is culturally aware, compassionate, effortlessly literary, and a future engineer with humanitarian principles. Her story is one of a blending of cultures and intellects, causes and creativity. She is notoriously resilient and kind. Natalie is the state TSA Treasurer, a researcher with the Center for Plastics Innovation, and helps to organize the Youth Environmental Summit. Natalie will study engineering at Yale or in the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.”

“My parents immigrated to the U.S. around my age, hoping to help their families in China and their future family in a foreign nation. To me, my parents are the precise definition of tenacity and resilience, overcoming linguistic, cultural, and racial barriers to mold a foundation for my brother and me. Similarly, I’ve been fortunate to grow up in a community where there are opportunities available and changemakers present to learn alongside me while we define our own identities.”