Flores explores various creative interests
By Ivy Ho
With a consistent hobby of creating visuals on Canva and AdobeSpark and wanting to learn more about journalism, Abraham Flores, an incoming junior from Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts decided to apply for the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Youth Academy (AYA).
He found out about the summer program through the executive director of the 24th Street Theatre, a place that Flores attends often as a thespian.
“I was one of the executive media manager for one of their Day of the Dead festivals and [the executive director knew I was] interested in civic engagement and using media to make civic change,” Flores said.
He figured that this program would give him the opportunity to learn more about journalism and civic engagement, which would benefit him this upcoming school year as the junior class president.
“Just being a normal civilian, a bystanderーI’m just saying, that won’t do anything,” Flores said. “I ran for junior class president in order to make all these changes and that’s what I will start doing.”
However, before being in a position where he could decide the changes to be made to his school and getting to pursue the arts, Flores was at a private school with limited opportunities.
“I went to this very tiny private school called Renuevo Leadership Academy and there were no arts or anything,” Flores said. “So in 9th grade, I was like, ‘I need to go to a school where I can learn more about my passion for the arts and educate myself better and have more opportunities.”
After transferring to the Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts, Flores has been working on his craft as an aspiring actor.
“Being an actor isn’t stable. However, I have hope. A lot of people from my school have gone on to do Broadway shows so I’m excited,” Flores said. “They’ve gotten into really good schools like the New York University for musical theatre. My only fear is financially, it’s so expensive, but I would love to be doing musical theatre and dance, act, and sing.”
Though he definitely wants to pursue musical theatre in the future, Flores also has an interest in graphic design and technology.
“If being an actor fails, I can totally be a web designer or do public relations. After I go through this course, I think I could have a career in that.” Flores said.
