Many people have hidden talents, but they don’t know about them. Sometimes it just takes the right environment to find it. Some even find their hidden talent and love it and work to cultivate it, like sophomore John Elrodd Guiriba. He moved to the US at the age of ten with his family.

“I knew we were gonna move when I was 7. My dad moved here when I was 5 and I was confused why. I thought he left us for good. I was scared about that, but we skyped, and he reached out to us, so I wasn’t really scared of that anymore. I didn’t know we were gonna move, but I figured out through context when I was 10,” Guiriba said.

Guiriba moved around a lot until he got to Missouri, so he had many different teachers over the years. Many of them encouraged him to get into art.

“I didn’t know I was into art when I lived in the Philippines. Teacher’s encouragement got me into it; I didn’t think I was gonna be good at art. I was self-taught because my art teacher didn’t encourage me but my other teachers did,” Guiriba said.

Guiriba and his family moved around the world and went through a lot together. He feels his mother is doing her best to help him in any way, not just by moving him across the world, but emotionally, as well.

“My mom knows I like art but she doesn’t give feedback or praise me for it. I think that’s her mechanism to make me be better. I think about how good it is, and it turns bad and she criticizes me for it and that makes me strive to be better,” Guiriba said.

Every parent wants what’s best for their kids. Guiriba knows this well. His parents moved him here from the Philippines when he was young, so he could have the best future.

“I might do something art-related with my major, like an architect, because my mom doesn’t want me to pursue art in college. She came here for me to have a good future and I don’t think art’s gonna give me that. She forces me to do medical stuff or pursue a medical career, like stuff with high-paying jobs but I’m not sure if she wants me to do art. I don’t want to pursue a medical career but she wants me to do stuff in the medical field. I know her reasons, like she wants me to have a stable job. Artists don’t get paid as much as doctors so I think she just wants me to have a better life here. That’s why we moved to America,” Guiriba said.