She Was Fresh Out of the DMV With Her New Permit When Carol Called. A Spot Had Opened Up. She Was Going Back to Ilocos Norte — Where She's From.
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Lakeisha Jailah Quitog
Preferred Name: Lakeisha
School: Waipahu High School
Grade: 10th
Home Community: Waipahu, Central Oʻahu
Delegation: Ilocos Norte/Ilocos Sur
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: Future Farmers of America State Association Secretary (2025–2026), 4-year member; Waipahu PAAC Club (1st year); Model United Nations Outreach Coordinator (2nd year); Marauder Media videography club (1st year); Punahou Sustainability Fellowship Cohort 2 Fellow; United States Youth Political Review Writer (student-founded organization focused on combating political polarization); JV Girls Tennis (1st year); upcycling clothes; guitar; drawing/painting; ceramics/pottery; writing; crochet; tennis; volleyball; photography and videography experience; nearly fluent Ilokano speaker; Japanese 2
Career Aspirations: Connecting people across difference — she frames her life's work as helping people understand why they care about what they care about, then using that to motivate action on issues like clean energy, traffic safety, and mental health; her FFA state-level leadership, Model UN, and Sustainability Fellowship all point toward policy, advocacy, or international relations
Why They Were Selected
Lakeisha was taught that agriculture was a dirty job. For three quarters of seventh grade, she avoided it. Then a friend pushed her, she walked into Mr. Kozuma's classroom with brand new white shoes, and fell in love with the dirt on her hands, the corduroy jacket, and the community that came with it. By tenth grade she is the State Association Secretary of the largest career-technical student organization in the country, a Punahou Sustainability Fellow, a Model UN Outreach Coordinator, and a writer for a student-founded political journal. She got the call that a spot opened while she was fresh out of the DMV with her new permit. She is Ilokano. She is going back.
What They're Excited About
Getting the call fresh out of the DMV; getting to tell her parents immediately; going back to where she's from but in a totally new way; connecting more with her culture — she says she was never really educated about it; refreshing her Ilokano; seeing new parts of Ilocos; eating Cornetto for the first time in three years
She Was Fresh Out of the DMV With Her New Permit When Carol Called. A Spot Had Opened Up. She Was Going Back to Ilocos Norte — Where She's From.
Lakeisha Quitog had just walked out of the DMV with her brand new learner's permit when her phone rang. It was PAAC. A spot had opened on the Ilocos Norte delegation. She was in. She got to tell her parents as soon as she hung up — and the thing she was most excited about, she said later, was eating Cornetto ice cream for the first time in three years, because seriously, why don't we have that here? The Waipahu High sophomore is going back to where she comes from, but this time as a PAAC Sister-State Student Ambassador.
Lakeisha is Ilokano, from Laoag, Ilocos Norte, and nearly fluent in the language she grew up hearing. She's also the State Association Secretary of Future Farmers of America — the largest career-technical student organization in the country — as a tenth grader. She's a Punahou Sustainability Fellow, a Model United Nations Outreach Coordinator, a writer for a student-founded national political journal focused on combating polarization, and a member of Waipahu's PAAC Club. Her essay opens in the middle of a moment she almost missed: standing on dirt-stained floors in Mr. Kozuma's agriculture classroom, brand new white shoes already doomed, discovering something she was told to avoid — and falling in love with it.
Lakeisha was selected because she already understands the thing this trip is built to teach: that connection across difference is not just a value, it's a method. She climbed to second-in-command at the FFA state level fighting for agricultural policy. She joined a sustainability fellowship and learned that "1 + 1 = 3" — that people with different perspectives make each other better when they work together. She's going to Ilocos Norte not just to represent Hawaiʻi but to reconnect with a culture she says she was never really educated about — her own.
"It starts with standing on dirt-stained floors... It starts with, 'Nice to meet you.'" — Lakeisha Jailah Quitog, Waipahu High School, Class of 2028
When Lakeisha comes home to Waipahu from Ilocos Norte, she'll arrive with something she went looking for: a deeper understanding of where she comes from, and a clearer sense of how to use that to connect others. For a Waipahu community shaped by immigration, agriculture, and the stubborn belief that the world can be better, she is exactly the kind of student this program was built for.
