Daniella Cantey has won third place in the middle school category (Provided by the Cantey family)
Third place in the Stars and Stripes America 250 Youth Essay Contest in the middle school category has been awarded to Daniella Cantey. Daniella is an eighth-grade student at DoWEA’s Humphreys Middle School in South Korea.
The essay prompt was: “How has being part of a military (or military-affiliated) family shaped how you think about America?”
Recently, I heard stories of immigration tension, racism, and the growing division in the news. Conversations turn into arguments, as If there Is only one correct answer. I began to wonder: Where did the America I grew up believing in go?
As a student who grew up in a homogeneous nation, I often felt like I was not in the answer choices on the test. I felt different from everyone else. I was a military child, multi-national, and multiracial. I didn’t fit Into one category.
When I walked into a DODEA school, my thoughts changed. For the first time, I was surrounded by students who had also lived in multiple countries, across oceans, and carried more than one identity. When I introduced myself, no one looked confused by my background. They understood my experiences as if nothing was wrong. I realized something important. America is not a multiple-choice question. It is an open-ended one.
Life in a military family, especially for a military teen, is a unique experience. Every year, I watch families pack their lives into boxes and unpack in new places. I learned to adapt quickly, build new friendships, and say goodbye. Frequent moves led me to see America not as one fixed location, but as a connection of communities.
America is a country of “freedom.” However, military life showed me in another way. On base, there are rules to memorize and responsibilities to uphold. Discipline and structure matter. In school, we are encouraged to question and interpret.
America isn’t defined simply by diversity or geographical location. To me, it’s an open-ended idea that allows many opinions to exist at once. People may disagree, raise questions, and debate, but there is no single answer to grade.
Being part of a military family helped me understand this balance. There are clear rules on base, while there is also space for discussion in school.
Through this balance, I have come to see America not as a place with a correct answer, but as a country shaped by many voices. To me, America Is an open-ended question without an answer key. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once described America as “a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people.”
The America I believed In was never lost; it is still being written, and I am proud to take a role in its next chapter.
Daniella Cantey is an eight-grade student at Humphreys Middle School in South Korea. (Provided by the Cantey family)
