SEAN BARRON
BOARDMAN If you move to the Mahoning Valley from your home halfway around the world at a young age, how do you deal with the normal stress and anxiety of having to make numerous cultural and lifestyle assimilations and adjustments?
If you’re anything like Aroonrassamee Wongkeaitaroon, you write and submit a first-person detailed account chronicling your struggles, then make readers feel they are part of the journey.
Further helping you land on your feet is if your writing project wins a major essay contest something for which the 15-year-old Boardman High School junior can lay claim.
“I was in my government class watching a film when I got a notification on my phone,” Aroonrassamee, affectionately known as “Yok,” recalled. “I thought it was the wrong person or something, and I couldn’t believe it. I was dancing in my chair.”