Mariyanah Archuleta has liked building things since she was a little girl. "I'm a pretty creative person," she says, and the first time she heard of architecture, the idea took hold and never let go. Now a freshman at Española Valley High School, she is years from choosing a college, but she already understands something about structure. Anything worth building needs a strong frame. So do people.

Hers took shape at home. Mariyanah is an only child, and her mother, Michelle Martinez, understood early that no parent can walk into every room beside her daughter. So she gave her something to carry instead. "I can't be there all the time," Michelle would tell her. "You're gonna have to voice yourself. You need to learn how to use your words." It was advice Mariyanah heard often enough that, over time, it became her own.

Mariyanah learned. Not long ago, she found herself in a district conference room with a group of girls, seated at one end of the table while Interim Superintendent Dr. Karen Sanchez-Griego sat at the other. What followed was a friendly disagreement. Mariyanah spoke up for what she believed, respectfully and without backing down. Michelle, listening in by phone, heard her daughter find her voice.

And Dr. Sanchez-Griego listened. By her own account, she came away from that meeting not frustrated but proud of the young woman at the far end of the table, proud enough to give her a nickname: "the little lawyer." That evening, she called Mariyanah and Michelle, and the three of them talked for more than an hour.

For Michelle, that conversation meant a great deal. "I can call her at any point in time," she says of the superintendent. "She'll sit there and listen." It also affirmed something she believes deeply: "It's important to hear all sides of a story before coming to the conclusion."

Mariyanah's voice isn't only for herself. She speaks up for friends when they need it, though she's quick to give them credit. "They're pretty good at advocating for themselves and other people just as well as I am," she says. Knowing when to speak, and when to let someone else take the floor, is its own kind of wisdom.

She has tested her courage in other arenas, too. Mariyanah has run cross country and track, and she has wrestled, sometimes against boys. Michelle admits that wasn't always easy to watch. "Sometimes I had to look away," she says. Mariyanah hasn't decided whether wrestling will be part of her high school years, but its lesson has already stayed with her. "It humbled me a lot," she says. "There's always someone out there that can do something better than you." The answer, as she sees it, is to keep getting better, "even as a person."

That mindset shows up in her schedule. Mariyanah takes honors courses in math, biology, history, and English. Over the summer she joined Upward Bound, which is helping her explore colleges and learn how to apply. She also started working a part time job she has carried into the school year. College, she believes, "could help me get really far in life."

Michelle knows that path may lead far from Española; many Upward Bound students leave New Mexico for college. "Being my only child, you know, it would be hard for me," she says, "but I want her to succeed in life."

For now, Española is still shaping her. Born and raised here, Mariyanah says the heart of the community is its people, whom she describes as kindhearted and supportive. Growing up alongside classmates from many towns and cultures, most of her friends bilingual, has shown her how differently people can see the world. It has also, she says, helped her build "a backbone."

Michelle sees the whole village in the young woman her daughter is becoming. She is proud of Upward Bound, the honors classes, the job, and the teachers and mentors who have walked alongside Mariyanah since kindergarten. "She's had some great teachers," Michelle says. Every teacher brings something different, she adds, and through it all, "they still showed up there for the students."

The lesson Michelle gave her daughter began with a hard truth: a mother can't always be in the room. But Mariyanah knows what to do when she isn't. Speak with respect. Listen to every side. And use your words.