Aubrey Ilasco, a first-grader at Matthew Turner Elementary School, won first place for a letter she had written to Sen. Kamala Harris in the 2017 Growing Up Asian in America contest.

The contest, put on by the San Francisco-based community foundation Asian Pacific Fund, is put on annually during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and has distributed more than half a million dollars in cash and prizes to its nearly 1,000 winners and honorable mention participants since it was established in 1995.

This year’s theme was “Letter to the Senator,” in which students at all grade levels wrote letters to Harris— the first Indian American and second African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate— about issues they believe the senator should address. Such topics included access to education, racial issues and the well-being of refugees.

“Now, more than ever, it’s important to engage students to examine and bring to light the issues that affect them and their communities,” Audrey Yamamoto, the president and executive director of the Asian Pacific Fund, said in a statement. “We are honored to provide an avenue for our youth— the leaders of tomorrow—to share their points of view and celebrate their heritage.”

More than 500 students of all grade levels and ethnicities wrote essays or made videos for the contest. For the essay, winners were split into three categories— grades K-5, 6-8 and 9-12— where three winners from each category were selected as “Best in Class” and were awarded cash prizes. Aubrey, a 7-year-old first-grader in Jennifer Wheeler’s class at Turner, won in the “Best in Class” category and was awarded a $500 scholarship.

“It felt good,” Aubrey said in an interview with the Herald. “I was so excited to hear I won.”

Aubrey chose to focus her essay on how famous role models have made her accepting of her own cultural differences. In the essay, she detailed how she was born in Oakland to Filipino American parents and how she brings rice, noodles and dumplings to lunch while other students pack sandwiches.

“When I have dumplings for lunch, people back away from me and tell me that my dumplings smell gross,” she wrote. “They hold their noses, and I start to feel weird and sad. I don’t understand why I feel weird when I am American like them.”

Aubrey related the experience to her favorite show, “Fresh Off the Boat,” an ABC sitcom based on the memoir by restauranteur Eddie Huang about his experiences growing up in Orlando after being born and raised in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown. In one episode, Huang— played by Hudson Yang—is embarrassed to bring Chinese food to his school for lunch, which in turn causes him to feel embarrassed about his own culture.

“This happened to me too in my school,” Aubrey wrote. “There are only a few Filipinos in my school so most of my classmates don’t understand my food. They bring sandwiches and I always pack rice and noodles. I am different from Eddie because I like my food and don’t want to eat any other food.”

Aubrey enjoys “Fresh Off the Boat” for its humor and how she can relate it to her own experiences. She also views Huang as a role model due to his ability to fit in despite his differences.

“After watching the show, I thought to myself it is better to be myself,” she wrote. “If every person in the entire world were perfect, it would be like everybody is the same person.”

She reaffirmed that people like Huang and Harris are role models for inspiring her to be who she was.

Aubrey learned about the contest after her sister brought home information on the contest and told her she could enter. She brainstormed ideas with her mother, remembered the time students made fun of Aubrey’s lunches and connected that to Huang’s experience portrayed on “Fresh Off the Boat.” Aubrey was startled by her win but felt happy.

“I was super surprised,” she said. “I didn’t think a first-grader could win, but my parents thought I could.”

In terms of what she hoped people could learn from her essay, she said “It’s OK to be yourself, and it doesn’t matter what other people will say.”

Aubrey said she plans to save the money for college. Winners will accept their prizes at an awards ceremony at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco on Saturday, May 13. Aubrey’s and other winning essays can be viewed at http://asianpacificfund.org/2017-essay-winners.