Xuri’s new favorite hobby is roller skating. While some might find the threat of cold, hard pavement an overwhelming obstacle, Xuri sees it as an activity where her “hard work is immediately recognized.” 

Over the past few weeks, she’s dedicated herself to practicing at the skate park, where she gets to see her hard work pay off in tangible, almost instant ways. It’s a kind of immediate progress she appreciates, especially as she navigates another major milestone: her senior year of high school. 

Xuri has already applied to more than 50 colleges, including some of the country’s leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), such as Howard University and Spelman College. While she waits to hear back, she continues to lead as Co-President of her school’s Black Student Union and President of the Black Art Collective, a club she founded to explore Black artists through creative experimentation and artistic expression. 

Between her interests in art, Black history, and advocacy, Xuri has kept herself busy. But her confidence in trying new things didn’t happen overnight. In fact, as a child, Xuri describes herself as very shy and reserved, but over time began to realize the importance of her voice and started discovering how to use it. 

“Voice your opinions and share your knowledge,” she would tell her younger self, who would be proud to see how she’s grown into the passionate advocate that she is today.  

After three years of being a Girls Inc. girl, Xuri was recently appointed to the Girls Inc. National Teen Advocacy Council (TAC), marking a new chapter in her journey as a social justice advocate. And just as she does with roller skating, she’s already giving it her all. 

The National TAC, a group of high school girls selected from across the country, meet monthly to research and present a rotating plate of social justice issues that directly affect their lives as young women. Although Xuri’s time on the Council is just beginning, she looks forward to bringing her perspective to a national audience, particularly on issues she is passionate about like educational inequities and access to more comprehensive sex education. 

Xuri’s experience with Girls Inc. Of Metro Denver’s TAC has prepared her for this next step, as she’s spent the past two years learning about the ways that local politics shape the lives of people in her community first-hand. Last year, Xuri and her peers focused on battling education inequities within the Denver Public School (DPS) system, talking directly to students and fellow classmates about what they cared most about in their education before presenting their findings to Senator Michael Bennett’s staff. 

Her time on Denver’s TAC taught her how to connect personal values with broader social issues and communicate those ideas to others. Because of Girls Inc., Xuri says she’s had “more opportunities or more experiences to become better at voicing my values, connecting my values and opinions to social issues or broader issues, and then presenting all that information or knowledge in a way that can be easily digested by people.” 

But Xuri’s journey in advocacy didn’t start with Girls Inc. One of her other passions (and skills) is creating art, primarily through painting but also with mixed media. In fact, she plans to study Fine Arts with a concentration painting, hoping to establish the classical skills necessary to strengthen her artwork and its connection to her advocacy.  

One of her favorite pieces, a collage featuring fake hundred-dollar bills slashed by black strips and painted faces, won a social justice art competition for its striking representation of the historical influences on economic discrimination.  

Her appreciation for artistic ingenuity is evident in all aspects of her life. At home, her bedroom walls are covered with album covers from artists like Tyler, the Creator, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye and A Tribe Called Quest. Music, art and cultural history are all sources of inspiration for Xuri. 

Xuri also recognizes the importance of looking to our country’s history of advocacy, pointing to movements like the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party as examples of how smaller acts of advocacy and self-expression can contribute to broader efforts to address community needs. 

“It [advocacy] helps people realize they can kind of prompt large amounts of change or positive change in small ways,” she says. “Any kind of advocacy is important for just improving or creating widespread change that’s positive or beneficial to everyone.” 

Whether she’s using art to explore economic discrimination, researching educational inequities or creating spaces for conversations about sex education, Xuri sees advocacy as something that can take many forms. After all, whether she’s at the skate park, in the art studio or speaking up about an issue she cares about, Xuri knows that progress starts with putting in the work — and having the confidence to keep going. 

Check out Xuri’s artwork here: