Thank you for Making Noise with us!
We are incredibly grateful to every student who participated in this year’s Make Noise Today Student Scholarship Contest & Exhibition. Your voices have created waves of inspiration, resilience, and hope.
Thanks to your incredible talent and passion, we received a record-breaking 600+ submissions, each story uniquely powerful and impactful. We celebrate each of you for courageously sharing your narrative.
2025 Winners
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2025 Winners *
Literary Arts
1st Place - Rucha M.
2nd Place - Zoe Q.
3rd Place - Hannah R.
Performance Arts
1st Place - Autumn P.
2nd Place - Mina Loy C.
3rd Place - Vy T.
Visual Arts
1st Place - Madison L.
2nd Place - Cara L.
3rd Place - Teresa F.
Exhibition Launch Event
The winning student submissions along with the top 60+ submissions have been turned into a student art exhibition. We kicked off the exhibition with an unforgettable opening night at the Edison Theatre in Long Beach. With community members, artists, students, parents and educators in attendance, the space came alive with conversation, art, and youth voices front and center. The evening featured gallery walk-throughs, music, student awards, and a sense of shared purpose: to amplify AAPI youth stories through creativity and community.
Virtual Exhibition
The student exhibition is hosted by the Billie Jean King Main Library in Long Beach, CA, until August 31, 2025. For those who are unable to see the exhibition live, the semifinalists and winning work can be viewed here.
Meet Our Judges
Literarary Arts
C.B. Lee is an author of young adult and middle grade fiction including the NYT Bestseller Minecraft: The Shipwreck. Their works also include the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selected A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix, the Lambda Literary Award nominated Sidekick Squad series, Ben 10 graphic novels, Out Now: Queer We Go Again, and From A Certain Point Of View: The Empire Strikes Back. Lee’s work has been featured in NPR, Teen Vogue, Wired Magazine, Hypable, Tor’s Best of Fantasy and Sci Fi and the American Library Association’s Rainbow List.
Visual Arts
Jennifer Tran’s art practice considers language, translations and intergenerational narratives. It is inherently collaborative, drawing on the various skills and interests of her family. With a background in architecture, Jennifer focuses on understanding the domestic space and finding meaning in the organization of personal objects. However, her broader interests center around themes of migration, labor and aspiration.
Born in 1981 in Toronto, Canada, Jennifer is currently based in Long Beach, California.
Performing Arts
Michael Navia, Ed.D. is a credentialed in English and started career as an English teacher.
Michael has been principal for 24 years at four different schools in the Long Beach Unified School District; Cubberley School, Marshall Academy of the Arts, Millikan High School and Renaissance High School for the Arts.
With Grattitude
None of this would be possible without our incredible student artists, supportive educators, partners, and the community who continue to believe in the power of young voices. Thank you for showing up, lifting up, and making noise — together.
– The Make Noise Today Team
*Please click here to reference this year’s contest theme and categories