Tomas Morales is an aspiring businessman with a flare for writing, debate and a passion for the arts. He has accomplished many things in his short time at Rio Hondo College, winning awards for the forensic speech and debate team as well as placing first in the recent River Deep writing competition.

Morales has been a Rio student since 2012 and is currently taking honors classes aimed toward his goal of earning his AA in business and transferring to a university, where he plans on pursuing a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business administration.  

He is a well-rounded student who dedicates himself to his studies, work and his passion for the arts. He plays the violin and in his spare time, loves to read and write. Morales used writing as an outlet for expressing himself since a very young age to express deeper emotions not easily shown in person and although his career choice is business, he is a natural writer.

Morales decided to enter the writing competition last-minute and entered two different pieces. The memoir, “Loaded Dad, Drunk Dad, Leisure Dad” was the second piece he submitted and it won first place in the memoir category of the River Deep competition and is now published in the 17th issue of the River’s Voice.

Morales originally wrote the memoir for an English 101 class he was in a year ago. His teacher, Marcosian had assigned a prompt to write a narrative about a past experience and suggested to him to dig deep into a personal experience for inspiration.

At first, he was not sure what to write and it was not until he read a memoir written by Azar Nafisi titled “Reading Lolita in Tehraran,” that he knew what direction he would take. When giving his speech at the Writes of Spring Festival, Morales gave insight on what inspired him from Nafisi’s memoir and gave a speech worthy of inspiring others.

Which was,“Life can be uncertain at times, but as Iranian author Azar Nafisi empathizes, one can ‘invent the violin, or be devoured by the void.’ Now the ‘violin’ and the ‘void’ can mean many things to different people, as it should, but the truth I hold to these words is to strive for prosperity and to bring any dream that seems too big to fruition. It is fortunate that I am in love with my major and that Rio Hondo College fosters a positive atmosphere to help me reach my transfer goals. While there is uncertainty in pursuing any goal, it is better to have tried and failed than to stay in the same place that I was born. Even though life can be uncertain, I can agree with Nafisi by inventing my violin, because I refuse to be devoured by the void.”

It is with those words that it can be understood that Morales is hungry to continue on the path to success and is making the right moves in order to ensure it.  He plans on transferring out of Rio Hondo by next spring semester and is looking into Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal State Fullerton, where he will pursue marketing and his goals of owning a successful company.