Monte Vista senior Kevin Zhou, 16, was one of the six winners of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “Idea of America” essay contest.
Zhou is also an editorial intern at the Danville Weekly.
Zhou was flown along with his mother and father to Washington, D.C., to accept the award at the Women’s Memorial in Arlington Cemetery. Each winner was presented a medallion and received a $1,000 cash award. The other winners were from all over the country. Kevin was the only winner from California.
The essay contest was started two years ago by President George W. Bush. It is part of Bush’s “We the People” initiative, which supports the teaching and study of American history. The contest draws entries from 11th grade public, private and home-schooled students across the country. Zhou found out about the contest when he was researching essay contests on the Internet.
The topic this year was “How were the tenets of totalitarian movements different from the ideals that unite Americans? How did the ideals embodied in the American founding prevail?”
Zhou’s 1,000-word essay focused on the social contract between a state and its people. In a democratic state the people and the state have a relationship. If the state is threatened, as in war, Zhou explained, the people will come to the state’s defense because of this mutually beneficial relationship.
In totalitarian regimes, however, the state uses brute force to rule and is impervious to the will of the people. In times of trouble, people doubt and undermine the authority of the state because they have no stake in how they are governed. Zhou gave the example of Nazi Germany in World War II.
The essays were reviewed by 16 history teachers. The highest scoring essays were then reviewed by members of the National Council on the Humanities. Bruce Cole, chairman of the NEH eventually selected the winners.
Previously, President Bush had attended the ceremony in Arlington to give out the awards. This year, however, the awards were given out by the chairman of the NEH, said Zhou.
Last year, Zhou won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage essay contest. The Kennedy Library Foundation received 2,459 essay submissions from students across the country. Zhou and a student from New York City shared the top honors and were flown to Boston to accept the award. The ceremony was hosted by Caroline Kennedy and U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at the Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
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