Angie Angel: What are some of your biggest goals?

Luis Montiel: Well, one of my biggest goals is to open a program for kinesiology for low income athletes in California. I plan to study kinesiology, which is basically like a muscles doctor and like bones and everything. And I plan to open a program dedicated to low income athletes, for them to get free appointments and just for them to get checkups, just in case they get injured. They can make it really cheap for the low income athletes in California. 

AA: If you wrote a book, what would it be about?

LM: It would be about leadership. I have a thing for being a leader, and I really enjoy being a guy, for someone you know, like being a mentor. So I think it would be based off of that.

AA: How do you feel about school?

LM: School? I really like school. It’s not just because I learned a lot. I really think that the way they teach might not be the best, because you don’t really use creativity, right? But I really enjoy it, because it’s a way to socialize yourself. 

AA: Do you speak more than one language?

LM: I speak three languages; Italian, Spanish, and English. 

AA: Where did you learn Spanish?

LM: Well, when I was born, I was born in the US, but I left when I was two months old to Mexico, and I lived over there all the way to fourth grade, and I came back over here. My first language was Spanish.

AA: I heard you went to Italy.

LM: Yea, I went to Italy for like half a year almost a half year. I studied over there during the fall/winter, and I came back over here in spring to high school. Over there it’s different. It’s like a high school, but you specialize in the thing you want to do when you grow up. So if you wanna be a doctor, you go to a medical one; if you wanna be an artist, you go to an art one. I went sophomore year which was 2022. I really liked it because it was a new experience, the food was amazing. The people are kinda rude, that’s one of the things I didn’t like. And it’s really different from the US. I prefer the US, in my opinion, because it’s just more fun, more open, more free.

AA: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

LM: I really want to go to Portugal. It’s really nice, the weather and nature. They have really nice beaches, and they have really nice buildings, right? They know how to build the old style, Roman Empire. Everything is really nice. So I really like that. I’ve never been there, but my mom has. So she showed me pictures of where she went, and it’s really beautiful.

AA: Who do you look up to?

LM: I really look up to my oldest sister and my grandpa. Why? Because my oldest sister, she just has been a person that takes responsibility for stuff that she shouldn’t be responsible for, but she just is responsible in order to take care of the rest. And my grandpa, because he went through a lot, he just kept going. He did it for the others, not for him. So he’s really caring about other people.

AA: What does success mean to you?

LM: Success? I think being successful means to be happy with yourself. I think as long as you’re happy with yourself, you’ll be able to live a life worthy, right? Not working something that you don’t you don’t really feel comfortable with.

AA: What are your greatest values/priorities in life?

LM: If it’s as in right now, my biggest priority is probably school. But as well as school, is my family and sports. So I have those three, and my second priority is myself. Even though I said you gotta feel comfortable with yourself, you also gotta put others, something in front of you, just the people that you love.

AA: If you could change something about yourself what would it be?

LM: I would probably try to remove my ego because I feel like I might get too cocky. I am a really high status on my team, I do get really good grades and everything. And even though I think of everyone I still have some ego in me like everyone does and I want to get rid of it.

AA: What do you feel is one of your greatest strengths?

LM: One of my greatest strengths is probably communicating with people. I’m great at talking to other people. I really enjoy talking to other people. I like to learn about other people too.

AA: What is a weakness you feel you have?

LM: A weakness I have is probably self doubt. Sometimes I doubt myself of things that I could definitely do, but mostly when I learned new languages, I kind of doubted myself so I kind of shut down myself. I think shutting myself down was a weakness that happened in me.

AA: Why did you decide to compete in Mr. Cardinal?

LM: I thought about it sophomore year at the end, because I had a couple of friends that were participating. And in junior year, I had a senior friend who was competing. I think he was first runner up. He just inspired me a lot, because he was second captain with me, so he inspired me a lot, and I really thought of getting involved with the school, and I really want to just mentor other people and guide him, and be able to be someone who other people could look up to.

AA: What makes you different from the other women and men competing?

LM: Well most of the people competing right now are the guys they’re in water polo right? Most of them. I’m their captain so I feel like they know how to listen a lot. So I think that’s their greatest strength, being able to listen. But for me, my greatest strength is being able to guide people and being able to mentor people. I really want people to look up to me and be able to feel like they need to participate like I did. 

AA: Is there a reason most of them are in water polo?

LM: I think everyone just started getting the confidence because me and David G we were the first ones to try to compete in it. And then the water polo team kind of felt like the need to compete too. They wanted to be involved. And that’s why I think we’re such leaders, you know. And that’s what makes me happy, that being able to bring in more people.

AA: How do you handle disappointment?

LM: Disappointment? I really think that the mind is so powerful that I don’t really get disappointed as much, because it’s just perspective. If you look at it in a bad way, you’re gonna see only the bad things, but if you look at it in the good way, you’re gonna notice good things. So I try to focus only on the good things that happen. I try to be optimistic.

AA: For what in your life are you most grateful for?

LM: I’m really grateful for my sisters. They’re the people that have been there with me since the beginning. And I really wish I would have found out that way sooner, because we’ve had some problems before, but I think right now, our relationship is the strongest, and I wish that would happen before.

AA: What clubs are you in?

LM: I’m in the Upper Bound club, Students for Change club, and Aquatics club. The Upper Bound club is just a club to help students be able to reach college or universities that they decided, keep them on track for the school year. Students for Change is just to implement ideas that the students have into the schools. They passed a bill in California, they went to talk to the mayor, I really don’t remember the details about it, but they just try to implement students to be able to change how the school system works and stuff like that. And then Aquatics Council is just mostly what we discussed for the sport. We try to recruit people, we try to implement people into managing stuff like that.

AA: If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?

LM: I would try to get people to understand that we don’t need more like we just need enough. We don’t need more than what we’re supposed to get. I feel like people when they get more of what they need, and that’s wrong, because there’s people that have less of what they need. 

AA: What is the problem in the world that bothers you the most? 

LM: Mostly animal abuse, animals being in the streets, like extinction, I don’t like the thought of animals having to suffer because of us and all because we can’t really be taking care of the world how we were supposed to do. My dad and my stepmom opened a clinic over there in Mexico, in which they were trying to take care of just free animals like cats and dogs and they would take care of them. But over time, it was too much money, so they couldn’t pay for it. So they had to close it. I helped them with that. But in the future, I plan that if I get to, like, spend 20, 10% of whatever I make and put it into a shelter for dogs and cats and all the street animals.